What makes a memorable and good souvenir?

Answer 1

I enjoy giving gifts to family and friends that are locally grown or produced. I especially enjoy making jams from locally grown fruits. I made a wonderful strawberry-fig jam for a group of friends visiting for a class reunion one year. I picked the figs from a friend's yard, then made the jam and gave the jars away in a seven-day period of time! In my own yard I have an apple tree and a plum tree that make good cooking and canning fruits. The apples are not particularly good for anything but cooking! They make terrific pies and cakes. The plum tree produces far too many for me and my son to eat, so I can either let them rot from the tree, or I can make plum jam. If you've noticed, I say jam instead of jelly. I have strong objections to using Suregel (spelling?) because it calls for a proportion of 2 cups of Suregel to 1 cup of fruit. I just think that's too much sugar!!! I will use 1 cup of fruit to 1 cup of sugar, if necessary, but most of the fruits I use are naturally sweet, and don't need that much, usually. Also, I strongly object to throwing out so much of the fruit to make jelly! We must use only the fruit juice to make jelly. Making muscadine or scupernong jam is a long, complicated process for me, but I refuse to boil the fruits down and throw everything but the juice out! I got distracted, sorry. Other locally grown or made objects make good gifts. One year I put together my own recipe collection, consisting of recipes that I had gathered over the years from friends, my friends' mothers, family members, people I worked with, people from my church, etc. Once I got it put together, I ran off copies to be given to friends and family for Christmas. Some of my friends particularly enjoyed seeing their recipes in print, and I made notations about the people I got the recipes from, and things we were doing at the time, and vacations where we used certain recipes, and things like that. I made notes about my Mother's dinner parties where she served that particular dish. You get the idea. A friend of mine would take long walks every day, and pick up pretty rocks that suggested colors and shapes of interest. He took the rocks home, and in the evening, while watching television, he polished the rocks into smooth, clean, beautiful objects of interest. These could be used in his garden around the house, or given to others to use that way. Or they could be put into aquariums or terrariums. Or just put one into your pocket as your "lucky rock". Whatever. If you are a gardener with a green thumb, get a special plant growing for someone you love. If you have a favorite tree or shrub, pick a small piece with leaves and a flower to press between wax paper. Collect feathers from the yard (if you have one). Learn to whittle, and gather pieces of wood that are especially colorful or hold special shapes. Use your imagination. If you enjoy sewing, there must be hundreds of things you could make. I ran way over with this answer! I probably didn't help you out, either. Hopefully, you found a good suggestion here! Cathy Williams