If you or someone you know has an upcoming wedding, baby shower, or other event you might be interested in making unique favors or a personalized gift. I have made many custom gift sets that include my hand made goat milk soap and other bath and body products from Capella's Garden Soap Co. This hub has pictures from my latest wedding's bridesmaid's gifts. Of course you can hire someone else like myself to make your favors and/or gifts, but if you have the time and a little creativity you can save yourself some cash doing them yourself.

The first step in making your own gifts or favors would be to determine your theme and/or colors. If you are not the bride or guest of honor you need to consult with them about the specifics of their event. The more you know the better your gifts can be. For instance, I made favors for a baby shower for a baby boy. The natural inclination in blue, right? Wrong. The mom to be didn't much care for the blue thing, she preferred green. The nursery was decorated in green as well. I went to the craft store and was able to find a wide variety of scrapbooking paper to wrap her favors in for her shower. They were very cute and a hit, but had I investigated further I would have found out that she also had a frog theme going that I could have carried over into the favors with the green.

If the colors or theme haven't been set yet, even better! This is the time to discuss them and the reality of what you can get to match. If the colors are all the rage right now you won't have a hard time finding things to customize. If not you will have a harder time. Later I will talk about how hard it was for me to find a BLACK container for one of my brides - who'd have thought black would be hard?

Make sure you get samples of fabric and decorations if you can to bring with you on your shopping trips. For the wedding in the pictures the bride had wonderful irridescent red Thai silk accents as well as polka dots. I really wanted to use that red as my base for the sets, but didn't have anything to match to. I was so glad I did not just try to guess! When I arrived at the wedding the red was a very small part of the color theme and the irridescent red silk even smaller.

If it's not you, then getting to know the guest of honor or bride is very important. Find out her style...Is she casual, formal, fun? In my line of work it's very important to know what the brides favorite fragrance is. Or if she wants a soap gift set for others maybe she would prefer to give them their favorite fragrances. She also may want to customize the sets to her recipients color preference instead of the event theme/colors.

Since I already have an established reputation for making beuatiful custom gift sets, often my clients will just set a dollar amount, give me the color theme and let me run with it. That is not always the case. Some people want to be hands on every step of the way and you need to establish how much they want to be involved from the get go. Especially with brides it can go either way. Some are just so stressed they want you to take care of everything, others just have to have their finger in the pie!

Well, of course I am partial to handmade bath and body products! Even for a guy! They are great for anyone male or female and can be given for any occasion. I and many other handcrafters would be happy to wrap in special paper for you and even customize labels and scents, time permitting.

For bridesmaids, what about making jewelry yourself? Something personalized just for them. There are many bead shops that will gladly help you design pieces perfect for your recipient, you may even be able to make something to compliment thier dresses to wear on the wedding day.

Food is always practical and nummy for everyone. Harry and David is a classic bet, but really why not design your own basket from local sources? Find the local candy shop for fabulous toffee or fudge. A bakery can give you the best french bread to pair with some pasta, sauce, and cooking implements. A honeymoon basket with crackers, spread, champagne or sparkling cider and fruit (and maybe something more intimate if you are comfortable) is always appreciated! For the cook you can make potholders and pair with other kitchen gadgets in thier colors. Don't forget to add the special touch with ribbons to match!

An at home movie basket has been a hit for me many times. Last year I bought this monsterous popcorn bowl and bought several DVD's I new my parents would like - some chick flicks, some action. I bought their favorite sodas, candy and some microwave popcorn, filled the bowl with shred and the goodies and added a theater gift card for a night out. I wrapped it all nicely in cellophane and tied it with a ribbon. It was perfect for my parents who already have everything!

This is really important if you are actually doing the gifts for someone else, but even if you are making your own you can get carried away with all of the wonderful "gotta' have it" stuff you can find. (And if you are anything like me and your creative energy gets going the sky's the limit to what you will find - you have to say "no" somewhere!)

How much should you spend on a bridesmaid gift? Well, that is up to you. A few brides and bridesmaids discussed this on a yahoo ask forum. My perspective is to do what is in your budget and I think that if you have a maid of honor who has really gone all out for you that you should spend a little more cash on her.

You have the stuff to fill it, but what are you going to put it in? Baskets are the norm, but don't limit yourself! I've used fabric covered boxes or decoupaged (you can even decoupage a box yourself!) boxes from the craft store. Picture boxes, plastic totes, ceramic bowls and plates. Large capuccino cups.

The wonderful gift set shown on this hub would have been so much easier to make had I been able to find either a black or pure white bowl or basket. I searched all over and could not find one. No black at all and the white ones just weren't the stark white I was looking for. At last at the dollar store I found a 2 pack of clear acrylic bowls. I bought the polka dot fabric and a glue gun and a few pleats later I was in business! Think outside the "basket" here - that alone will make your gift truly unique!

If you want some really cute ready made boxes and bags there are a variety on online places to choose from. Bags and Bows has a huge selection as well as That's a Wrap!.

Now lets make your gift or favor truly stand out. You can customize with labels or tags with the persons name on them, fun quotes or poems, and the date of the event. Online Labels is THE place to buy labels for your inkjet or lazer printer in loads of different colors. They even have templates to use to make the labels! Of course if you want to make cardstock tags - no labels required! Just a bit of gluestick and you are set to go!

There are so many programs you can use to make your labels. The labels in the pictures were made using my all time favorite program, Microsoft Publisher. It can be pricey but is worth every penny. For more flexibility with graphics I have used photoshop as well.

If you are a stamper or scrapbooker you may be totally in your element here with papers, inks and stamps galor. I am not so I prefer to make my labels on publisher, print them and pair them with handcrafted paper for a homemade feel.

After all that work you don't want to mess it up by just handing it to the recipient. The common wrap for a basket type gift is cellophane. Wait! I have used tulle, organza and other sheer fabrics to wrap it as well. For a boxed gift try the newspaper their wedding announcement was in with it circled in red. Grandma and Grandpa are delighted to have a gift wrapped in a grandchild's art work!

Using the same font as the customized labels make custom name cards for a touch of class.

Keep thinking outside the basket and you'll be able to come up with your very own unique favors and gifts to please everyone!