How to find good gifts in charity shops

This vintage camera was a birthday present for my husband. It was made the same year that he was born. I bought the camera from the local Oxfam shop. 

Some people think it is a bit weird to buy secondhand presents, but I love finding gifts for people in charity shops, for the following reasons:

• you can choose something really special, rather than a standard present
• no wasteful packaging
• your money goes further
• a contribution to the charity

The trick is to buy presents when you spot them, and then stash them away until the next birthday or Christmas. 

I have even managed to find gifts for the 'hard to shop for' men in my life. The chess books shown above were for Dad. He was delighted with them.

The casserole dish shown below was a housewarming present for my youngest sister Hannah (who has recently started an excellent blog called Hannah and Her Thriftiness).

I also enjoy receiving gifts from charity shops. When I was about to go to university for the first time, my mum gathered up various pre-loved kitchenware items to get me started. The Pyrex dish shown below is still going strong 24 years later!

If you enjoyed reading this, you might also like how to find good stuff in charity shops.

Linking up with this week's Magpie Monday at Me and My Shadow, The Op-Shop Show-Off at Blackbird Has Spoken and The Nifty Thrifty at A Living Space.

Recycling Christmas cards into gift tags

When I was little, I remember my mum making gift tags out of of the previous year's Christmas cards, using pinking shears to create a lovely zig-zag edge. 

This is an old idea but a good one. As well as being a great way of recycling, this also means that you can select the gift tag to match the preferences of the recipient.

Following my mum's example, I have made gift tags in the same way this year.*

Here are some photos of my gift tags:

I'm linking up with Recycled Christmas at Lulastic and the Hippyshake. This is a great idea for a link-up. It is very easy to spend too much money at this time of the year, so it feels good to recycle instead of always buying new.

* Of course one thing that has changed since I was a child is that people send fewer Christmas cards. So instead of just using cards from last year I have used Christmas cards received over the past few years.

Tatty Devine name necklace

This is my nyssapod name necklace from Tatty Devine. Isn't it fab?

Name necklace from Tatty Devine

It was really easy to design this necklace by choosing the colour, lettering style, charm and chain colour. I tried various different combinations, and the final selection was as follows:

• standard size
• turquoise
• sundae lettering
• star charm
• silver-coloured chain

The cost was £27.50 plus £3 postage and packing, and my custom-made necklace arrived 10 days after ordering.

In case you are wondering why I am called 'nyssapod', I'll give you the short version here.

There was once a Doctor Who companion called Nyssa. I rather liked the name so adopted it as my middle name when I was at school. It even ended up on my degree certificate.

My dad started calling me 'nyssapod'. It was actually a joke. But in 2005 when I needed a name for an e-mail address I found that all the obvious choices were already being used by other people. So I decided to use 'nyssapod'.

It's handy to have a name that no-one else uses, and now I have various accounts in the name of 'nyssapod', including

• pinterest
• twitter
• audioboo

Over the last 7 years I've grown quite fond of the name 'nyssapod' - and this necklace is a celebration of that.

Joseph Joseph kitchen gadgets from Find Me a Gift

Joseph Joseph Nest Utensils set

I’ve been doing a lot of de-cluttering recently. This has made me a lot more critical about the things I buy too. I'm trying to bear this William Morris quote in mind:

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. 

So when I started looking on the Find Me a Gift website I was immediately drawn to the lovely Joseph Joseph kitchen gadgets, which are both beautiful and useful.

The first thing that caught my eye was the Nest Utensils set (shown above). We have had this a few weeks now and it is used daily, with the green spatula being the most frequently-used item. The colours are nice and bright and the utensils are easy to use and to clean. Plus the amount of kitchen worktop space taken up by the set is tiny, which is particularly appreciated in our compact kitchen.

The other item I have been impressed with is the Rocker Garlic Press (shown below). Most garlic presses I have tried have been infuriately fiddly to use and to clean and I was starting to wonder whether I would ever find one that would justify the space it took up. Well now I have found a wonderful garlic press that does the job perfectly and looks elegant to boot.

Joseph Joseph Rocker Garlic crusher

So why buy these items from Find Me a Gift rather than from a department store or kitchenware shop? I found the Find Me a Gift website easy to browse, and liked the fact that there were videos of the products in use. There are also customer reviews to help you choose the right gift. And there is a loyalty points scheme which means that you can get discounts off future purchases.
I was so impressed with both of these Joseph Joseph items that I have bought a couple more to give away as presents.

Disclosure: I received a Scribe Portable Laptop Stand worth £34.99 from Find Me a Gift and had originally planned to write a review of that. But I was actually more impressed with these Joseph Joseph items that I bought myself. All reviews are completely honest.