Just kidding. Obviously. Because that's not a thing.
Whenever people ask "What do I gift men?" I always advise: "Walk through his day and see which items the man in your life uses all the time". Does he shave? Use a face towel or washcloth? Moisturize? Exercise? Generally gravitate toward things that have a nice scent?
Working off that, it's relatively easy to then source products he already loves - ensuring he’ll actually be excited about receiving & using it. Look for everyday items elevated by gorgeous detail & presentation, and you’ve got your gift!
Morning routine guy? Think sleek electric toothbrush in navy or tungsten metallic finish (amazon has a gorgeous Phillips- my husband has one, of course ;) ). Monogrammed face towels, hand-poured organic soaps, upscale shave bars & beard oils, marble or wood vessels for the vanity… those are all immediate ideas that come to mind. Take a leaf out of our book & package them all together for a gorgeous curated look.
For your buff man, think: personalized leather gym tote, large linen beach towel (stylishly masculine & tidily folds up into the tiniest roll), great scented body soap or aftershave. Get any or all - but of course, if you present them altogether inside the tote bag, your gift has been elevated from mere product to an entire experience!
Lots of jobs have switched to remote, and so many could use upscale office ware for their new home offices. For the professional; men’s leather envelope clutch for important papers, gold edged agate or onyx block as a paperweight, concrete pen holder, stylish desk lamp. For those still commuting, luxe car diffuser. For the stay-at-homes, masculine scented candle or a set of noise cancelling AirPods to aid concentration.
For the entertainers; shakers, flasks, a new drinks bar, and luxe, special edition games. I’m always drooling over black on black playing cards, with gold & black foil detail…and marble chess boards, and acrylic backgammon sets.
For the cozy guy; herringbone throw, soft lounge socks, cashmere slippers, Abercrombie shearling hoodie.
Lots of times the best gift ideas are the ones sitting right in front of you!
Whether you’re looking to find & package your gifts yourself or let us do the work; the same principles apply. I always use these guidelines when developing any gift, & followed them when I was creating our men’s line. I know the struggle of buying gifts for men, and yes, they all have socks and tie clips and wallets and ties and picture frames and mouse pads. Instead of going that same, well trodden route, I added products that most men might have as a basic- but elevate it.
The average man will, at most, have the shaving cream, deodorant and soap that he's used since he was 16 and wanted to feel "like a man". Men rarely give any regard to scent or packaging or anything fluffy like that. If it works and works well, where do I swipe my card?
But once men start inserting women into their lives, well… let's just say we might want to start focusing on that.
Most men use shaving cream, for example; I added a shaving bar & badger hair brush to make any man's experience feel luxurious. Our beard oil comes in a small enough bottle so that when he travels he can pop it into his bag and not think twice about it, and yet it still looks expensive, so that if he's away from home- he still feels taken care of. We have a gorgeous car diffuser which not only makes the inside of any car feel like the insides of a Rolls Royce, but adds a sophisticated scent.
I've also curated everything in this collection to have a subtle and yet distinctively masculine scent; attractive to both men and women.
But besides for the classic needs of men, just like any woman would like an opulent experience, so too, a man. I've created a line that would greatly enhance any man's sensory experience, whether it be in his car, bedroom or bathroom.
Gifting men is the bane of many people's existence- but it doesn't have to be! Here at TheBoxNY we make sure everyone is taken care of.
I hope this gives you some ideas to gift that man in your life, if you're stuck!
Happy Gifting!
Sara
]]>There’s something magical and fascinating about these adorable, fluffy alpaca; growing and thriving in the harsh and extreme weather conditions 4,000 feet above the sea, yet still exuding such sweetness and charm. Temperatures plunge from the hottest peaks of the midday sun to the depths of cold, wintry nights in a single day. Our hardy alpacas, though, hardly seem to mind. Their soft furry wool; so light and fine, works to protect them from broiling heat and brutal cold alike.
Treasured for all the amazing qualities so uniquely designed to help them survive; the alpaca’s wool is truly an awe-inspiring natural material. And that brings us to the point of this whole story- a spotlight on our adorable little stuffed alpaca dogs.
It’s these alpaca dogs that were the lynchpin for our entire ThePlayBox collection (browse it here). Customers were searching for the perfect baby gift for that friend or relative who already had it all. You know, the one who coordinated their entire nursery with the baby’s wardrobe, days after their gender announcement… We needed to create a gift that would be not only luxurious (of course, that goes without saying), but also beautiful and useful without being another baby outfit set.
As always, planning started with my favorite part- the mood board. We kept the palette all neutral grays, beiges and whites; aiming to fill the gift box with natural, pleasing, gender neutral finds. I scoured the web and google images for inspiration, pinning happily, when I came across these adorable stuffed animals. My breath stopped for a moment. I was thoroughly obsessed. I knew this had to be part of our gift set. Quickly, I followed the link on the image.
It was linked to an Alibaba factory in China. They didn’t actually produce the dogs; they used that image to promote their synthetic (pink!) stuffed animals. I searched high and low for those dogs. No one sold them wholesale, no one seemed to produce them either. I kept finding factories that promised to manufacture them, only finding that they’d never actually done it before, and didn’t even know where to source real alpaca wool. It was a mystery to me where the image I’d clipped had even originated from!
Finally, through a contact of one of our really good friends, I was directed to search in Peru. There, among the indigenous people of the mountains, I finally discovered some artisans, well-schooled in the art of product-making using the native alpaca wool. Now our gorgeous little dogs could be produced.
Located right by the fields and mountains of the alpaca herds, the artisans cover the entire process. With deep respect for the animals they raise ingrained in their culture; they carefully and gently shear the alpacas once a year. The long, furry-soft wool is washed, combed and sewn straight onto the stuffed dog forms. Together, we chose to keep the fur naturally colored, to capture the authenticity and integrity of the alpaca’s original form.
From the herds, freshly shorn, to the final, cuddly dogs; each step is executed with exacting love and care; right there, in the heart of the Andean mountains in Peru.
And that, my friends, is the story behind our cuddly alpaca dogs.
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There’s so many parts to owning & running a gifting business like TheBoxNY, but one of the jobs I love most is planning and building out new gift boxes. We follow this process for each new gift box we introduce; whether it’s a new collection for the website or custom event and client gifts.
]]>Planning a destination wedding and want custom gift boxes for your bridal party? Need a themed, masculine gift box for your holiday corporate gifting? Looking for a small giveaway gift at your intimate dinner party? These (and more) scenarios would be a good time to contact us about creating a bespoke gift box, custom tailored to your event or client.
Here's how bespoke gifting works!
Every stage is shared with the client, from our original color palette, to mood boards, to decisions about ribbons, box configurations & all the finishing touches. We follow this process for each new gift box we introduce, whether it's a new addition to our ready-to-gift collection online, or custom client gift. It ensures that all parties are constantly up to date on all details, and that the final product is exactly as envisioned.
We start with the theme. Who’s the gift box for? (Mom, girlfriend, client etc.) What’s the occasion? (wedding, birth, holiday etc) What emotions do we want to evoke? (excited, calm, appreciated etc.) Once we have all that we can start brainstorming, adding product ideas, color palettes and box configurations.
My next step is always a moodboard. Mood Boards are my favorite way to plan anything, be it parties, interiors, or gift boxes, of course. The color palette and inspo pics make it so easy to visualize the end result- and that’s really important before going on a shopping spree!
Here's an example:
Our first ever collection was created for women, full of soft, organic self-care essentials to delight and inspire relaxation. See how that creates the theme? We built our color palette based on this theme- soft blush, neutral beiges, grays & whites; for a feminine, relaxed feel. Then we searched for organic, simple & natural self care products; clipping images, assessing how the packaging of each coordinated and harmonized with the other.
After combing through hundreds of products and choosing the finalists to place on our mood board, we start the actual consideration of products. Ingredients, quality and manufacturing process are the first things we look at. Is the product simple, clean, organic? How about the quality? I personally hate receiving gifts with cheap filler items, or unnecessary clutter like a single mug or glass that would never coordinate with my household decor. So, we’re looking for items that are extremely high quality and would be useful and actually used.
There are times when we know exactly the kind of product we want to include, but just cannot find one that fits our considerations. Then we’ll reach out to one of our amazing vendors & see if they can provide that elusive perfect product- and sometimes, we even manufacture it ourselves. When we started this business, I never thought we would be manufacturing our own items, but lo & behold- we’ve got quite the private label, by now!
When we have our product finalists, we order samples; and try layout after layout until we get the perfect fit. Many gift box companies use crinkle paper filler to keep everything from flying around, which leaves a bit more leeway in product sizing. I personally am not a fan of it, because I find it to be so messy; we use tissue paper to stuff everything and keep it perfectly in place. The downside to that is that every item needs to fit perfectly and that necessitates a lot of Tetris style figuring!
Once we have it all figured out, we can finally put in our bulk orders & begin the magic of building those gift boxes! Nothing compares to that satisfying, last tug of the ribbon, threading our gorgeous hang tag and tying our signature fluffy bow!
I hope you find this as fascinating and exciting as I do! Feel free to reach out to me in the comments or at our contact form with any more questions about bespoke gifting! Next, I'll be letting you in on the juicy details of why we choose certain gift products over others and some cool behind the scenes in the products we manufacture under our own private label... Stay tuned!
Xoxo,
Sara
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I am definitely one of those people who love giving gifts even more than receiving them. Don’t get me wrong, I love a birthday surprise as much as the next girl. But there’s something about getting a gift right; about getting that perfect reaction of shock and awe, that just makes all the planning and execution worth it, don’t you think?
So, as I mentioned, I absolutely love gifting. And I’m pretty great at it, being as I actually run a business centered around it. There’s one catch- I’m absolutely HORRID with important dates. I can’t even remember my own birthday, let alone any of my loved ones! I will never, ever remember that I need to prepare a gift, until the occasion is suddenly upon me- and then all my fabulous ideas and perfect products are for naught.
I’ve learned to help myself remember special occasions with visual aids - like birthday calendar printouts that I slip into my daily planner, so that I have enough advance notice to plan a gift. I mark important occasions with little stickers, so that I remember to add whatever I’ll need to my To Do list when mapping out my tasks.
Then I thought - maybe there are some more of you with similarly loaded task lists, having a hard time remembering all those boring dates? Would an event calendar printout not be an awesome thing to share?
And so, without further ado, here’s the exact calendar I use to plan my events and gifts that need to be prepared… in advance.
Happy Gifting!
Xoxo,
Sara
]]>Have you ever been absolutely STUMPED by a gift idea? The perfect travel gift for someone who seems to have it all? The bereavement gift that is sensitive yet not pushy? The appropriate gift for a terminally ill patient? The hostess gift or bridesmaids’ box that sticks to a budget yet doesn’t look tacky? The colleague/doctor/lawyer gift that says ‘thank you’ without saying ‘too intense’?
Well, I have. And I imagine you have, too, if you’re here.
I’d love to help you with the perfect present for any occasion- and that’s why this gift guide is here. From wedding gifts to funeral gifts, trip gifts to stay-at-home gifts, elaborate party gifts to intimate backyard picnic gifts, holiday gifts, engagement gifts, birth gifts or just-because gifts.
My vision for this space is to create a careful curation of elegant, refined and classically stylish gift ideas, as well as ways to incorporate them into occasions, holidays & parties. Expect to see gift guides, DIY tutorials on wrapping, ribbons & presentation, moodboards & color palettes, and more.
I’d love to hear- is there anything YOU would like to see here? Looking forward to building a great space for us to visually & creatively inspire each other!
Let's get gifting!
Sara