Category "$20 or Less"

Night Light Get Well Gift

Queen Darlene - March 3, 2016 - $20 or Less, Condolence, Get Well

When someone is under the weather, the first thought of how to help them feel better is preparing chicken noodle soup and taking a box of Kleenex. But what about someone with a long term serious illness?

heart-night-light-get-well-thoughtful-gift-idea

May God’s Light chase the darkness away.

Cards and prayers are always welcomed. Books to read and adult coloring books are great ideas too.

I wanted to give my friend something a little different – a gift that would lift her spirits and light up her day every time she looked at it.

I found the perfect gift in a beautiful night light.

Brighton carries several designs, and I chose a heart night light.

I wrote in the card “May God’s light chase the darkness away.” I wanted her to know she was thought of daily and that prayers were being sent her way. Continue Reading

Celebrate With Sparkling Juice & Mocktails

Princess Diana - February 23, 2016 - $20 or Less, Baby Shower, Birthday, Business, Congratulations, Food & Drinks, Retirement, Teacher Gifts

There are many opportunities for celebrating at work. Just because you can’t consume alcohol or champagne at the office shouldn’t prevent you from toasting someone’s good news.

My co-worker, RaShonda, recently received a job promotion and became a grandmother for the first time. Two big reasons to celebrate!

To congratulate her on her two brand-new titles, Personnel Assistant and Gigi (her nickname for grandma), I decided to bring some treats to the office.

I brought a bottle of sparkling white grape juice cocktail, a bottle of sparkling Mango Bellini mocktail, and some white chocolate covered pretzels.

Love is the Best Medicine | Valentine’s Day Gift

Queen Darlene - February 11, 2016 - $20 or Less, Valentine's Day

Looking to surprise your Valentine several days in a row? Try the Love is the Best Medicine seven-day pill box. This small gift allows you to express your love in a big way for an entire week!

Items you will need:

Sunday to Saturday pill box
Variety of small candy
Love messages

To assemble, fill each section of the pill box with small candy and a folded love message. Hand write or print your seven love messages on long slips of paper so they can easily be folded to fit into the container.

Leave the pill box out in the open for them to find, or surprise them by slipping it into their purse, work bag, suitcase, etc.

A Check for One Million Kisses

Princess Diana - January 19, 2016 - $20 or Less, Anniversary, Birthday, Valentine's Day

When you’re young and don’t have much money, you come up with really creative ways to express your love. My-then-boyfriend-now-husband came up with this gift idea for my 23rd birthday.

When I opened my birthday card from him, I was surprised to find a check. That’s weird, I thought.

For a split second I was totally confused until I read the check. It was made out to me for the amount of One Million Kisses or $XOXO.

Now, that’s a surefire way to melt a girl’s heart! I loved him so much for telling me “I Love You” in such a romantic way.

A Stash of Beautiful Greeting Cards

Queen Darlene - December 31, 2015 - $20 or Less, Birthday, Christmas, Condolence, Get Well, Mother's Day

When my parents-in-law moved into an independent retirement community, it was bittersweet. They had lived in their home for more than 50 years, but now they no longer had to worry about maintaining it.

With neither of them able to drive, their “kids” frequently would take them to run errands but sometimes things came up, and we just couldn’t.

Seniors living in retirement communities don’t often relish needing to depend on others so it’s nice to think of ways to keep some things status quo to give them the sense of still being independent.

One of the things I discovered my mother-in-law wanted were greeting cards for birthdays and anniversaries or get-well cards for her new friends.

Grammy loved giving beautiful cards as she felt they were a gift in itself. I began collecting fancy, unusual, and 3D cards to give her every few months.

She soon had her own personal stash of greeting cards for all occasions!

LOTTO Fun for the Whole Family

Queen Darlene - December 24, 2015 - $20 or Less, Birthday, Christmas, Family, Party Favors, Retirement

Looking for a gift that is inexpensive but creates a “big bang for the buck?” Lottery tickets and scratch offs are fun and easy on the pocket book if you have lots of gifts to buy for Christmas.

A few years ago, my son just started his new job and was digging out of his school loan debts. He wanted to give everyone in the family a Christmas gift, and there are 15 of us.

Braden came up with the idea of purchasing $1 lottery tickets. He placed them inside money envelopes to completely keep the recipient off guard for a better surprise.

At the time, the lottery was sitting at $350 million – one of the largest jackpots in history. It was all over the news making quite a buzz.

The timing couldn’t have been better to give a lottery ticket of this magnitude. Everyone in my family talked about winning and what they would do with the money!

Handwritten WWII Letter Screen Transferred on T-Shirts

Queen Darlene - November 19, 2015 - $20 or Less, Birthday, Christmas, Military/Veterans

My husband found a handwritten letter from his dad dated May 5, 1943 from when he served in the Army during WWII . The letter was written to his parents and sister describing his day and how he missed his wife, Betty.

handwritten-WWII-letter-on-t-shirt-thoughtful-gift-idea

An old handwritten letter my husband’s father wrote by having parts of the letter screen printed on t-shirts.

Randy’s father had beautiful handwriting, and I thought the letter should be shared with his brother, Kyle, and sister, Lesa. But how? Copies seemed so blase’. Then the idea of having the handwritten WWII letter transferred onto t-shirts came to mind.

I found a local t-shirt screen printing business and selected different sections from the letter to create three different shirts. Each shirt also featured the postmark showing the date of the letter and their dad’s signature, Sgt. Eugene Drew. Continue Reading

“A Soldier’s Silent Prayer” | A Book for Veterans Day

Queen Darlene - October 29, 2015 - $20 or Less, Military/Veterans

I read my friend and author Sherry Kast’s first biography “A Soldier’s Silent Prayer” about Muscogee (Creek) Nation national treasure and honored WWII veteran Phillip W. Coon.

I found it to be a quick read and fascinating book. It’s an amazing story of Mr. Coon’s incredible journey – one that took him from a small Indian community in Oklahoma in the 1920s to the world stage as the United States declared war against Germany and Japan in December 1941. Can you imagine?

This veteran’s survival story is a tale of tragedy and triumph as he overcame insurmountable odds to survive the Bataan Death March in the Philippines and 3.5 years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese during WWII. Continue Reading

Buy Their Single Favorite Flavor of Candy

Princess Diana - October 27, 2015 - $20 or Less, Birthday, Business, Christmas, Congratulations, Family, Food & Drinks, Get Well, Gifts for Him, Kids, Party Favors, Teacher Gifts, Valentine's Day

What’s your favorite color of Starburst candy? Pink? Red? Yellow? Orange?

Pink for me! We all have our favorites.

The color or flavor we don’t like… yellow Starbursts for me… those usually stay uneaten in the bag or we give them away. Thankfully, my husband likes yellow Starbursts.

While my husband likes all of the flavors of Starburst candy, he doesn’t treat the different flavors of Airheads so equally.

The other day he mentioned how he wished the entire bag of Airheads candy he bought only contained the watermelon flavor. That’s his favorite!

My thoughtful gift idea light bulb immediately turned on in my head!

I searched the Internet, and there it was…. (cue heavenly angel sound effect)… a one pound bag of Airheads watermelon candy bars.

I’ve never seen single flavors of Airheads sold in any stores I’ve been inside. It’s always the assorted or variety pack. You gotta love the Internet and bulk candy options!

Did you know you can also buy single flavors of Starburst candy? Yep. I can buy a whole pound of pink strawberry Starbursts. Oh yeah, don’t mind if I do.

Old Family Photos Made New on T-Shirts

Queen Darlene - October 22, 2015 - $20 or Less, Birthday, Christmas, Family

What to do with old family photos? Since my grandparents and parents have passed, I have become the keeper of old photos. I have thousands of photos in albums, boxes and drawers. Some are even dated back to the 1800s.

I wanted to create something new from old family photos for my two brothers and myself as a Christmas present. I found a wonderful photo of our parents in their early years of marriage and chose a cute picture of the three of us as young kids.

Picking the photo was no easy task since my mother took hundreds of pictures of her three children. She wanted to capture every moment of us growing up.

I used a local t-shirt screen printing business that transferred the pictures onto t-shirts. Since I gave at Christmas time, I chose long-sleeve t-shirts.