Make Your Own Gourmet Gift Baskets

 by: Donna Monday

Everyone loves to receive a gift basket. Corporate gift baskets are often given by businesses to their customers as a token of their appreciation. However, most gift baskets are person to person expressions of love and friendship.

You can find a great selection of online gift baskets from the very expensive to the cheap. Or, you can come up with your own unique gift basket idea and surprise a cherished friend or loved one.

It’s not difficult to make your own personalized gift baskets. Most gift baskets involve a theme.

Here are some sample ideas to get you started:

• Cookie Gift Basket – bake up some homemade cookies and enclose them in colorful plastic wrap, include a personal card or poem.

• Chocolate Lovers Gift Basket – include individual fancy chocolates, boxed chocolates, or the person’s favorite chocolate bars along with hot chocolate mix.

• Holiday Gift Basket #1 – a Christmas holiday gift basket idea could include small stocking stuffers, candy canes and homemade Christmas cookies.

• Holiday Gift Basket #2 – a Halloween holiday gift basket can be stuffed with candy, throw in some plastic skulls, spiders, cob webs and assorted creepy items.

• Wine Country Gift Basket – wine and cheese baskets are favorites, include two bottles of choice wine from your favorite winery or wine shop, add cheese and crackers.

• Coffee Gift Basket – Your favorite coffee lover will enjoy fresh gourmet ground roasted coffee (or their favorite brand), flavored creamer, cookies and a fun coffee mug.

• Italian Gift Basket – include a variety of dried gourmet pasta like spinach, whole wheat, or dried tomato, two jars of pasta sauce, fresh mozzarella and parmesan cheese, garlic bread and fancy olive oil.

• Tea Lovers Gift Basket – you can include several varieties of black tea, green tea and herbal teas, a mug and homemade butter cookies adds a nice finishing touch.

• Champagne or Beer Gift Basket - the champagne basket would be elegant: includes a bottle of fine champagne, cheese and crackers, and fancy chocolates; the beer basket includes several domestic and/or imported beers, lagers, or ales, chips, pretzels and nuts.

• Pet Gift Basket – dog and cat gift baskets are the most popular. For a dog you can include: homemade doggie biscuits or cookies, a doggie collar, doggie toys. For a cat you can include: cat treats, cat nip and cat toys.

Now you know that all it takes to make a unique gift basket that will be treasured is a little ingenuity and your personal touch.