Gifts for Valentines Day Gifts for Him and Her in the Year of the Yin-Fire Rooster
For starting fresh in this year of the Yin-Fire Rooster, romantic and meaningful gifts for him or her should be an interesting beginning to the Lunar New year. Gifts can be great ideas for jump-starting projects or keeping a relationship tight and meaningful anew, never middling nor losing the magic that made it work at the start. A good Valentines Day gift should keep your new year together even more special and attract good fortune as the year moves forward...
For Her Birchbox Subscription
If your sweetheart wants to pamper herself, look at getting her a Birchbox subscription gift, it is one of those themed subscription box services that specialize in curated beauty, skincare and make-up items that are your gift to yourself or a loved one who loves surprises every month. It also costs cheaper than a gym membership. You can get her a three-month subscription to see if she likes surprise gifts every month. Who knows you might get your own Birchwood, if your girlfriend likes the idea enough to share the experience with you.
Image Credit: Birchbox All of that for just $10 a month at Birchbox.
Steamy Romance Novel
Steamy romances are no longer the guilty pleasures every woman devours behind most people's backs. They are considered good reading for adults and even new adults as the same escapist fiction as science fiction and fantasy turn on another kind of reading person. You can gift your sweetheart with one if she already has a reading habit and a beloved book collection or you can introduce her to the world of amourous reading adventures of pulp, cookie-cutter heroines and the alpha cavemen princes. She can get a kick out of the stereotyped fantasy situations or it can give her an idea how you both can enjoy a more intense and adventurous time together.
If you're on a tight budget and don't want to look cheap, go to Quiapo and look for one of them basket-weave purses sold there for only P120 to P150 a piece. These come as a zipper holding together a basketweave envelope of a purse. They are about the size of a small Moleskine notebook and can hold her lipstick, press powder and bills. You can also get one for yourself and put your biillfold in it and your writing pens, credit cards and business cards. A basket-weave purse looks gorgeous as a lady's accessory and formal enough to be used by a guy-on-the-go.
Work Shed for She (Girlfriend)
Probably the best Valentine's gift you can give your sweetheart that's not a car or a gadget, but one that will endear you to her forever. A work shed! or what they call a She Shed--a backyard hideaway for your sweetheart. Building a work shed for your girlfriend may be as cheap as that brand tablet or smartphone you were planning to give her but a bespoke work shed with a themed design may be just the perfect gift for a writer, artist painter or potter, craftsperson, foodie, coffee junkie girlfriend. A personalized work shed is a place where she can enjoy plenty of downtime and Me-time doing her hobby, getting some reading done or spending time with you over hot coco. If you want your girlfriend to remember you for always, gift her with a quaint, girly work shed on Valentine's day.
Image Credit: Kloter Farms Reader Shed (Fair Use) Kloter Farms provides everything you need for your Reader She Shed.
For Him
Moleskine Notebooks
For writer boyfriends and soulmates, a Moleskine or two may be the best gifts you can give this Valentine's day. Moleskine is known for its durable hardbound notebooks with thick, cream-vellum pages that are all writers' favorite notebook fetish. They may be rather pricey compared with local brands but they are never an indulgence and you can never have too many Moleskines on your work table or in your messenger bag. Artist boyfriends also love these as their sketchbook, doodle notebook. For the Yin-Fire Rooster year of 2017, what better idea for a fresh start than a gift of Moleskine journals or sketchbooks for your lovey's idea notebook or work sketchpad?
Image Credit: Moleskine (Fair use) Moleskine notebooks offer custom heritage editions for businesses as special gifts or for commemorative company events. Why not Valentines gifts for your crew?
Even DIY Moleksine style notebooks from craftsmakers (check Etsy.com) make cheaper alternatives if you are on a budget and still want to indulge your boyfriend with his notebook fetish.
Image Credit: messybedstudio Some craft notebook makers also put song lysics on your personalized order on Etsy.
Loot Crate Subscription Box
Loot Crate is a subscription box that is a perfect gift for boyfriends who still love toys, comic books and gaming. Loot Crate also offers curated movie or anime merchandise so if your beau is into that stuff you can bet yourself that he won't resist this subscription box as a gift and may get his own long term subscription if he falls in love with the idea. If you love cute things too like anime character merchandise and stuffed toys, Loot Crate has options for that too so you can also get your own subscription trial going.
Image Credit: Loot Crate All of that for only $10 a month at Loot Crate.
Iguanas Sandals
Outdoor sandals are always a great gift. Forget local superstitions about gifting footwear to friends as bad luck. Many local brands are renowned for being topnotch and even better than imported brands. Iguanas Sandals are among some of the best brands of outdoor footwear and sandals you can find although they have few retail outlets in Manila and have more kiosks in provincial malls. Buy and support local craftsmen--Iguanas is designed and manufactured locally--to encourage people who make the best Pinoy products keep giving us the good stuff. You can buy the brand at their Robinson Cavite and Malabon kiosks.
Steamy Romance Novel Too
Pulp romances aren't just for ladies of all ages who have a fantasy for a certain kind of alpha-male, charming prince. You might think it too crazy to have your boyfriend understand why you secretly hoard and read Ellora's Cave erotica or steamy romances like that brand, but he might enjoy something almost similar like (adult film celebrity) Sasha Grey's Juliette Society which reads like some noir secret society adventure.
If your romance is in in the doldrums, a steamy romance novel might give him an idea that you're not some prude waiting forever for him to figure out that you like romance to be just as intense and unrestrained as a good read, so that he can stop holding back and treat you like a woman the way only "alpha males" can. Watch Beauty and the Beast after you gift him with one and hope he takes the hint.
