Here’s five thoughtful, inviting, unique, and conscious-minded gifts for just about anyone.
1. Get Thoughtful with a Unique, eco-friendly bag, wallet, tote from Rareform.
Rareform is an eco-conscious company that repurposes old billboards (which today are made of huge pieces of pliable vinyl) into one-of-a-kind, engaging, conversation-worthy pieces of moveable art. Yes, their art comes in the form of many types of bags, wallets, totes, purses, and travel-related items, all moderately priced and ready to say ‘I want a future with you.’
This super durable, long-lasting vinyl would otherwise head to the landfill to join all the other boring, expected, and generic Valentine’s Day gifts from previous years… but the awesome team at Rareform cleans it and shapes it into the tough & sexy items you’ll use on next year’s honeymoon after she says ‘I do!’
2. Become One with the Force of Love with LovePop Flowers
Real flowers are nice. They’re beautiful, they smell pleasing… and they’re rotted and dead inside a week. Ay caramba. Who wants to leave that as your remembrance of the year’s most romantic day?
Instead, get an insanely cool, magical, and supremely unique bouquet of flowers — and accompanying 3-D card — from my friends at LovePop. They took the ancient Vietnamese paper art of kirigami and married it with cutting edge ship design to produce exquisitely detailed, eye-popping 3-D works that will last as long as your relationship.
Does your love love Star Wars? Get a ‘bouquet’ of Darth Vader and his stormtroopers. Or a ‘You’re One in a Millennium (Falcon)’ popup card. Charming teddy bears, colorful hearts, cute dogs, exotic birds, Disney characters, your favorite cartoons, you name it, LovePop has a crazily fun, smile-inducing, get-that-extra-hug gift for your someone special.
3. Set Your Relationship Ablaze with a Bertello Home Pizza Oven
Nothing, and I mean nothing, says I’m in this for the long haul and I’m not afraid to get saucy like a home pizza oven! Come on, I dare you to find anything that can heat up your romance — and a gorgeous, chewy Napolitano — like a Bertello.
They’re luxuriously affordable, come in either wood-fired or gas compatible, and will quite simply turn you into a sexy maestro of the pizza peel (that’s the essential long-handled, spatula-like device you use to put pizzas into the oven and take them out again). Indulge your love by indulging in possibly the sleekest, coolest home cooking gadget out there.
They have a video page where you can learn how to do it right the first time and every time thereafter, which might turn into every day. https://bertello.com/pages/videos-1
4. Stir Things Up with Online Cooking Classes
If you’re lucky enough to live in a city where they offer one-of-a-kind, immersive cooking classes that you know you can get to, that’s great. But we now have this thing called the internet where you and your significant other can stay together in the warmth and comfort of your own home in your pajamas and slippers… and cook world-class food with world-class chefs. You can do some of these at your leisure while others offer dedicated time slots for actual live interaction with the instructors. Either way, if you have a nice bottle of wine or three on hand, you can hardly go wrong.
A few that stand out are Truffle Shuffle run by an energetic team of pedigreed young standouts, and Yes Chef, which features some of the legends of the game around the world.
5. Her & His Timepieces
There’s nothing more elegant and sumptuous that will make you instantly feel as sexy as strapping on a real deal, time-only-telling mechanical watch, or timepiece as I call them (and so should you, check out my blog about why). No, I don’t mean one of those electronic, web-surfing, footstep -tracking gizmos that also opens your garage. I’m talking about a decadently and expertly hand-crafted, old school timepiece with real hands that actually move via finely-detailed cogs and sprockets. Something your tough, cool granddad or elegant grammy would wear.
Timepieces make a statement. It’s like giving someone a piece of art — okay it is art. Art that you can display with the flick of your wrist.
A watch isn’t personal, you say? I wholeheartedly disagree! Timepieces are as personal as a gift can be! You can find one that exactly matches your and your significant other’s styles. Or you can further customize them like I do with my signature red watch bands.
Either way, what better gift to remind yourself and your loved one of your love than something you literally carry with you all day? There’s the relative newcomer (in the centuries old craft) Shinola, a Detroit-based company reinvigorating American manufacturing with gorgeous, affordable real watches (and lots of other sumptuous hand-crafted gifts). And there’s the longstanding Hamilton Watches, started in rural Pennsylvania back in 1892 (and since moved to the watchmaking capital of the world, Switzerland).