Do you have a particular time of year when all birthdays, anniversaries and christenings all come at once? As if everyone you know had conspired to be born at the same time and hold all their weddings at once?! Well I’m fast approaching that time of year and I’ve decided to be well organised this year to get everything bought and wrapped well ahead of time!

So I took myself and my trusty laptop off to a cosy corner and started shopping around for unique gifts online – no getting stuck in traffic or paying for parking for me ha! I found that a quick search through Google brought up the big companies, but I wanted to find something different, and support other small UK businesses like myself. So I headed to google and checked out who my friends were following and hey presto! I found this amazing gift website http://www.joaniesgifts.co.uk 

It has amazing ranges of gifts that are handily categorised into occasions (I found the Father’s Day section particularly useful a couple of weeks ago!) and even greetings cards too - practically a one-stop-shop for everything I needed to get all at once! This UK-based quirky gift shop is run by Joanie who initially set up the gift shop to sell her all the pretty oriental gifts and over the years her product range has grown into an eclectic mix of handmade items, and popular brands such as cute shabby chic homewares from East of India and UK designed Gorjuss bags and accessories.

One of the most amazing things I found on this site was Cards That Grow – greetings cards made from recycled paper, soy-based inks and organic pigments, that actually grow into flowers when planted! Essentially a card and a bunch of flowers in one – Awesome for my green-fingered family!

As you probably remember, I go a little crazy for all things oriental and in this site I have finally found a UK supplier of my favourite lucky cats ‘Maneki Neko’ (here’s my blog post!) and they are so reasonably priced that I think I’m going to have to treat myself during my next shopping trip to JoaniesGifts! I hope you’ll check it out for yourself, and I hope my husband takes note of my wish list for EVERYTHING in the oriental gifts category!

Related articles

• My Maneki Neko obsession – a new addition to the family! (cassiefairy.wordpress.com)
• My little Maneki Neko Obsession (cassiefairy.wordpress.com)
• My favourite craftpeople – Nicola B from the Catkin Boutique (cassiefairy.wordpress.com)