Housewarming

I'm getting to the age where a lot of my friends are buying houses.  Oh, how I wish I was one of them.  Anyway, with new houses come housewarming presents.  People always enjoy gift cards, but I tend to find them fairly impersonal.  And there was the one time when I bought someone a $50 Pottery Barn card to be told that "I went to Pottery Barn to use your card, but everything is so expensive there."  Talk about a slap in the face - sorry I couldn't afford to get you a new living room chair.  I thought you could pick up some nice knick-knack.


I could just buy people a platter or something, but who knows what people need.  Gone are the days when people went from living at home to getting married and buying a house with no in-between steps.  By the time most of us buy houses these days, we have been renting for a while, and have a pile of stuff to shove in those brand new closets.  So if I do buy sheets or whatnot, I always make sure to add a gift receipt. 


But lately I've been trying to give out more personal presents.  My favorite of late are address stamps from Sugar Letter on Etsy.  She has a lot of great designs and quick turnaround.  I love that they are completely personalized, and have multiple uses - from stamping envelopes to stamping books.  They don't come with stamp pads, so I buy some pretty ones for cheap from Oriental Trading.  Here's a few of my favorites from Sugar Letter:

Beautiful, right?