Gift basket ideas

A gift basket is a great way of making a customised present for your friends and family.

Here are a few ideas…

Gift Basket Ideas

Hamper

This is the original gift basket. Simply fill it with a range of foods that you think would work well. Generally it is best to use a selection of jars, tins, packets and bottles as there will not be any problems with preserving their contents for a while.

Suggestions for contents include

• Marmalade
• English Breakfast tea
• Fruit teas selection
• Fairtrade ground coffee
• Shortcake or other biscuits
• Crackers
• Corned beef
• Tinned salmon
• Crystallized Ginger
• Port
• Red wine
• Champagne
• Sparking wine
• Small bottle of whisky

Coffee lover’s kit

Include a nice cafetiere (the polished chrome ones are very smart) and a range of good coffees and posh sugars (e.g. cane sugar crystals). Or you could also put in a small stove-top espresso maker.

Champagne lover’s kit

A bottle of champagne with two glasses. This could easily be extended into champagne and chocolates – usually a favourite with the ladies.

Mushroom kit

This is ideal for the autumn. Include a number of packs of expensive dried mushrooms and a wild mushroom identification guide.

Sewing kit

Include a selection of materials, patterns, scissors, threads, etc.

Camera kit

Include a camera, book on photography, camera cleaning equipment, mini tripod.

Honey basket

Include a selection of different types of honey, a honey pot and a honey spoon, and maybe a book about honey.

Foods of France

This could include a bottle of wine, and various French bits.

Foods of Italy

Put in olive oil, pasta, mushrooms, pasta sauce, pesto.

Gardening basket

• seeds
• gloves
• Baby Bio
• gardening book
• trowel
• secateurs
• garden twine
• seed labels

Artist’s basket

Include paint, brushes, pencils, paper etc.

White Christmas

This was an idea that I did for my wife a number of years ago. It was quite simple – all of the gifts had a white theme. Here are a list of ideas, all of which are available in white. It works best if all of the individual items are white. Some can be nice, some can be trivial – it is all about doing a nice selection.

• iPod
• White chocolate
• Shirt or blouse
• Writing/ photocopier paper
• Envelopes
• Kendal mint cake
• White gloves
• Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood”
• White underwear
• Stockings
• Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” on CD
• Barry White CD
• Nintendo
• White pen

Part of the fun is going around the shops to see which items are available in a white colour.

How to make a gift basket

Making a gift basket is very simple.

The first step is to source a basket. I tend to buy mine at IKEA, but it is also possible to source them on the Internet. If you get really keenly into baskets you could also try basket making – just as my mother did. (She even went on to teach basket making at evening classes at the local technical college.)

An alternative to using baskets is to pack the gifts into a box. You could use a shoe box or a cardboard box from the supermarket. This will work best if you can paint the box first or cover it in crepe paper. There are now a wide range of plastic shoe boxes that make a nice alternative.
You then need to add the packing. Straw or coloured tissue paper tend to work well. A good alternative is to put paper through the shredder. This could work well if you use coloured paper, but scrap office paper would be fine too (make sure there is no sensitive stuff on it).
Finally, cover with the basket with plastic. Cling film is the easiest but you will need a wide roll if you do not want to cheapen the effect.

Any other ideas?

If you have any other good ideas – why not add them in the box below.