Gift Giving Solutions

Do you find yourself scrambling to pick up party and hostess gifts at the last minute?

Here’s what I do to avoid the stress:

1. Buy in advance. Sometimes you want to pick out the perfect, unique thing, but generally you just need a nice token to show you were thinking. I like to keep a stash of my favorite hardcover children’s books for birthday parties and nice wine, coffee, chocolate, jam or pancake mix for hostess or thank you gifts.

2. Have everything gift wrapped and ready to go. I buy most gifts from my favorite local boutiques who are happy to gift wrap free of charge. If you are worried about losing track of what’s inside you can slap on post it with the item and/or recipient – i.e “Joshua, Baseball Book.” If you order gifts online you can wrap them with butcher paper and a nice cloth ribbon and call it a day!

3. Order cute custom gift labels. Mine are from erincondren.com and read “Just a little something from the Gill family.” So helpful for birthday parties where cards and gift tags fall off and get misplaced.

4. Organize by type. I keep gifts for kid’s birthday parties on the top shelf of my girls’ closet, hostess gifts are stashed on the top shelf of my pantry.  Wherever you choose to store your gifts, make sure you can find them easily as you dash out the door!

{photo credit: athome.kimvallee.com}