| This past holiday season, we gave gift baskets to | | | | When all the material was obtained, putting a basket |
| several friends and family. All of the baskets we | | | | together that approached the professionalism you |
| gave were hand crafted and included items for | | | | see in the stores took some doing. Fortunately, one |
| friends who have medical conditions and diet | | | | of us (not me) has a gift for crafts and we ended |
| restrictions. The experience gave rise to the question | | | | up with beautiful, professional looking gift baskets |
| "Is it cheaper to buy gift baskets or make your | | | | that the recipients could enjoy without worrying |
| own?" There are some advantages to going either | | | | about their medical conditions. We ended up with a |
| way. | | | | basket for a friend that is lactose intolerant, one who |
| Making your own gift basket allows you to | | | | owns tropical fish and a family with no restrictions. |
| personalize a gift basket to the person receiving it. | | | | After going through the trouble of making gift |
| You can tailor it to personal tastes, likes or dislikes | | | | baskets, we found many, many stores online that |
| and the individuals personality. Making your own | | | | offer baskets tailored to fit almost any medical |
| basket shows more thought and care went into the | | | | condition or special need. Taking into consideration |
| gift and you can put more variety into the basket | | | | the time shopping and cost of material that went into |
| than you can often get in one that is commercially | | | | the baskets, it would have been much cheaper and |
| made. It also allows you to take into consideration | | | | easier to buy a commercially made basket and have |
| any medical conditions, diet restrictions or special | | | | it mailed or drop shipped to the recipients. |
| interests. | | | | We did learn that making a gift basket is not |
| We discovered that knowing what not to put into a | | | | something that can be done quickly. I would not |
| basket is as important as selecting the items that go | | | | recommend it unless you have lots of time to |
| into it. If a person is lactose intolerant or diabetic, | | | | consider the needs of the recipients and can take |
| there are some foods that absolutely must be | | | | the time to look for unique, special items to go into |
| avoided. It was handy to make a list of items not to | | | | the gift. It is a lot easier and much quicker to go |
| put in the baskets. | | | | online and order a special gift basket from a |
| Making our own baskets was time consuming, took a | | | | reputable vendor. |
| lot of thought and required a lot of effort to get it | | | | Making the gift baskets from scratch was fun and |
| right. It was necessary to go shopping to get all the | | | | allowed us to make unique gifts for some special |
| material needed. Baskets, fillers, food items, wine and | | | | people. And in this case, the satisfaction we received |
| a variety of nuts were included and it was not | | | | and the appreciation of the people receiving the |
| possible to find everything we wanted at one store. | | | | baskets more than made up for the difference in |
| A lot of time was used to find unique food items | | | | cost. After all, the appreciation of a friend is |
| that fit the medical conditions we were focusing on. | | | | something that is difficult to put a price tag on. |