Thank you notes are one of my pet peeves, or should I say the lack of them is. They are not on their way to extinc­tion, con­trary to grow­ing belief. Most peo­ple intend to send thank you notes, but then for­get, and feel like too much time has passed. While you should try to send thank you notes within a week or two, “bet­ter late than never” cer­tainly applies. If you’re a month or more…

Whether we’re forced to cut back on our spend­ing, or we are choos­ing too, we prob­a­bly would still like to have a lit­tle bling now and then. I’m the type of girl who will wear $$$ jeans with a $5 Tar­get t-shirt, while sport­ing my Jacki O sun­glasses and hold­ing my garage sale find hand­bag. I’m happy with what I love, not with who made it or where it comes from. (who it comes from…

I love giv­ing gifts! After many years of gift giv­ing it can be tough to come up with new, thought­ful, clever ideas. Here is my lat­est “guy gift”. It’s so sim­ple but yet unique. Pur­chase bbq tools of your choice and have them engraved with a catchy phrase, cook­ing quote, sen­ti­men­tal mes­sage, date, etc… This was a gift to my hus­band on our 1st year wed­ding anniver­sary. I engraved the tongs to say, “You don’t make…

On my recent trip to Idaho I wanted to send a post­card home to fam­ily. How­ever, I didn’t want to just send a bor­ing paper post­card. I came up with the idea of mail­ing an actual Idaho potato with my mes­sage writ­ten on it. My friends didn’t think the postal ser­vice would mail it, but I didn’t let that stop me. I bought my potato, scrubbed it clean, let it dry, wrote my mes­sage on…

Who doesn’t love room ser­vice? When I think of relax­ation and some­thing spe­cial, I think room ser­vice. While wait­ing to have a nice hot meal deliv­ered to your door, you can be watch­ing re-runs of Sein­feld on your dreamy bed. It’s my love of this lux­ury that made me think of my lat­est gift creation. “Room ser­vice please” is what I’m call­ing this cus­tomized gift that is per­fect for so many occa­sions, such as an…

Break­fast in a box, the per­fect party favor! Imag­ine going to someone’s home for din­ner, a cock­tail party or per­haps a beau­ti­ful wed­ding and get­ting to leave with break­fast for the morn­ing. I’d say that is hos­pi­tal­ity at it’s finest! The ideas are end­less, but to get your cre­ative juices started I’ve come up with my own sam­ple of an easy, but classy break­fast in a box. My ver­sion comes with scones and lemon curd,…

What’s the gift nobody will return? Here are the top 5 most creative and unique ways to gift money! Yup, it’s money! Good old cash. I know this is some­thing every­one can use. I usu­ally opt for the gift card, but with so many busi­nesses going under, I’m turn­ing to cash more and more these days. My nephew is grad­u­at­ing in Decem­ber from High School. Since the kid has every­thing already, includ­ing the best aunt…