Where to Find Unique Gifts

If you’ve read any of my articles on gift-giving, you know that I hold gift cards in disdain. Nothing says, “I’m giving you this gift out of a sense of obligation because I clearly know nothing about you personally” like a gift card.

The exception is when you are providing gifts to teenagers who are impossible to shop for and always short on cash. For friends and other family members though, you should employ a little more effort and ingenuity. And if you’re really stuck for ideas, try starting a gift closet.

5 Places to Find Unique Gifts that Aren’t Gift Cards

If you just aren’t the observant type and you don’t want to keep copious notes on all of your friends, you can cheat by choosing unique (if not especially personal) gifts. Here are my favorite sites to help you do just that:

• Etsy (best for gifts “for her”)
• Vat19 (for your quirky friends)
• ThinkGeek (for techno fans)
• The Grommet (great for anyone)
• IfOnly (for people you really want to impress)

I recently stumbled upon another great gift source thanks to the guy standing in front of me at Starbucks last week. He was wearing a gorgeous shirt by a company called S!R. I later found out that this company only makes 24 of every shirt. Pretty cool, huh?

These are my favorite go-to stores when I want to find something different than you’d find in the big box stores (no offense to the big box stores since 99% of the things in my home come from them). All the ease and convenience of shopping online with the end result of looking like you shopped all over for weeks to find something so unique. Score!

Do you have a favorite site for finding original gifts that didn’t make my list? If so, pretty please with sugar on top let me know in the comments. Anything to save me from giving out gift cards at Christmas!