Posts tagged engagment gifts
Think Outside The Gift Box: Unique Wedding Guestbooks
09 months ago
Here at A Personal Touch we LOVE to put a creative, personalized and unique spin on everything. So you can imagine how excited we’ve become now that we’re seeing couples thinking outside-the-gift-box when it comes to their wedding guestbook! Instead of setting out plain ol’ guestbooks, brides and grooms are getting creative and are coming up with unique items and ways for people to sign in and we can’t wait to tell you all about them!
As always, we stumbled upon our favorite idea from Pinterest! We saw the photo at left and were thrilled to see that people are personalizing canvases, like PMall’s Wedding Memories Photo Canvases, with one of their engagement pictures and having people write a little message and signing their names!
We love the idea that it’s more personal and people get to leave special notes for you but also because once everyone signs the canvas you have a beautiful, one-of-a-kind keepsake that you can hang in your home! It’s like getting 2 things for the price of 1 … and who doesn’t love that!?
To make matters better, PMall has a wide selection of Wedding Canvas Designs that offer you choices for even more of a unique twist to the guestbook! Some of the photo examples at right show how you can personalize an artistic canvas without a photo, like the Heart Rock design (top left canvas in photo at right), or another beautiful design like our popular Wedding Vows canvas (top right) which features the most important words you’ll say on the big day! The Forever and Always theme (bottom left) is a great example of how you can create a canvas in different sizes and shapes and also with the option to include more than one photo and the Photo Sentiments design (bottom right) is a great way to create a canvas with a photo and text that is important to you. You can use your personal vows that you’ve written yourself, a favorite quote, or even the lyrics from the song you will first dance to as husband and wife – the options are endless!
Believe it or not, the new guestbook trend doesn’t stop at pretty canvases. As you can see from the photo we came across on Pinterest (at left), people have been creating personalized photo puzzles, like the Love Connection Photo Puzzle (at right), and having their guests sign or leave a note on the front or back of the individual puzzle pieces! We love how unique this idea is and thanks to the wide selection of PMall’s Personalized Puzzles, you can personalize a puzzle in many different sizes, shapes, colors, and designs – some even come with a personalized tin to store them in! You can create one large puzzle (our largest puzzle includes 551 pieces) or personalize a couple of smaller puzzles and after the wedding you can put them together and frame them for one big piece of art or a beautiful wall collage! Think of all the fun you’ll have spending time as husband and wife, reading all the sweet and funny notes your loved ones have left you as you put the puzzles together. You could even bring the puzzle along on the honeymoon to put together during your downtime!
The last outside-the-gift-box idea we wanted to share with you was one of the most unique ideas we came across while surfing Pinterest.
Brides and grooms have started putting out calendars and asking guests to sign on their birthday or anniversary. How creative is that!?
The only thing that would make this idea better is to use a photo calendar like PMall’s Through The Year Photo Wall Calendar (at right) so that it’s more personal and so you’ll have beautiful pictures to look at throughout the year! It’s a great way to learn all the important dates for your spouse’s family that you’ll need to know once you’re married and it’s a great way to break the ice between your guests, as well!
So what do you think!? Are you a fan of the new trend of unique guestbooks? Have you or are you going to use one of these ideas or one of your own? We’d love to hear all about them! Tell us by leaving a comment or by emailing us at social@pmall.com!
We Have A Summer ParTEA Recipe Contest Winner!
09 months ago
The Summer ParTEA Recipe Contest may be the PMall.com Staff’s favorite contest yet!
We received several recipes and we couldn’t believe how unique each of them were and how delicious they sounded – we have enough recipes to keep our taste buds happy for the rest of the summer!
Thank you to all who participated in our contest, we can’t thank you enough for sharing all your recipe secrets. While all of your entries had our mouths watering, there was one particular recipe that stood out from all the rest.
Congratulations to Liga Gorrick for winning our Summer ParTEA Recipe Contest with her recipe for Rhubarb Ice Tea!
Thanks to Liga’s special recipe, she has won her very own Personalized Beverage Server with Stand that she can use to serve her Rhubarb Ice Tea for many summers to come!
Here is Liga’s winning entry for all of you to enjoy:
Hello,
My name is Liga Gorrick and my favorite drink in a hot summer day isn’t the regular ice tea everybody serves. It’s the amazing Rhubarb ice tea with its freshness and the beautiful pink color. As I grew up there always was plenty of rhubarb in my mom’s garden during summertime. Mom was really good making something yummy out of it. One of my all-time favorites is this rosy ice tea (especially accompanied with rhubarb tart or pie). It tastes like summer and childhood to me. My mother made it just with rhubarb alone, but I’ve been “playing” with the ingredients over the years and have discovered that I like it best with a little bit of ginger or with hibiscus tea.
All you need is:
- 8-10 large rhubarb stalks
- 8-10 cups of water (1 cup for each rhubarb stalk)
- 1 small ginger root (about 2 inches long)
- Honey (sugar, Splenda or any other sweetener)
Wash and clean the rhubarb (do not peel- the peel is what gives that lovely pink color), cut into about 1 inch chunks. Wash, peel and cut the ginger in thin slices. Add the rhubarb and ginger to the water in a large saucepan and bring it to boil, then simmer covered for 15-20 min. Take the saucepan off the heat and let it cool for a while. Strain the tea; add honey (sugar/Splenda) to the desired sweetness. Chill the tea completely and serve with plenty of ice. I like large pieces of ice that doesn’t dilute the drink so quickly.
For variety you can serve it with a little bit of fresh peppermint, substitute the ginger for a few strips of lemon peel or use rhubarb alone. You can also brew a few bags of hibiscus or green tea in the rhubarb tea while it’s still hot. Hibiscus tea makes it brighter pink or even red. It also gives a stronger, more sour taste. Enjoy!
Best regards,
Liga
Right away we knew we loved the recipe, but when we saw how tasty and refreshing the Rhubarb Tea looked in the picture Liga included, we knew we had a winner! Congrats again to Liga and thank you to all who participated in the PMall contest.
Make sure you keep checking back here for more contests and tips and tricks to make your parties and personalized gifts extra special!
Below are some of our other favorite fan entries for you to enjoy. They may not have won the contest but they’ve won a place in our hearts and cookbooks!
Katie Kitterman’s Pineapple iced tea
- 1 quart water
- 7 tea bags
- 1 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 2 tbl sugar
Brew tea, stir in the rest then let it sit (overnight if possible).
“It’s delish!”
Jennifer Jonas’s Ice Tea Recipe
- 3 Family Sized Lipton Tea Bags
- Pot of water
- 1 1/2 cups of Sugar
- 1 Can Frozen Lemonade Concentrate
- Cold water
Place tea bags in pot of boiling water & steep about 10 minutes. Put sugar in gallon tea pitcher. Pour warm tea over sugar & stir to dissolve completely. Pour lemonade concentrate in & top off with cold water. Stir well & refrigerate for delicious sweet tea (makes 1 gallon).
“What I love most about it: This recipe has been shared with me by my mom. We love this Lemonade Sweet Tea on hot summer days here in Texas. It’s very thirst quenching & refreshing (especially when it’s 107 degrees here).”
Juliet V’s Blended Masala Iced Tea
- 6 to 8 tea bags
- 4 cups water
- 4 cups cold water
- 3 pods cardamom
- 1/4” ginger diced
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 6 cloves
- 1/2 cup sugar or 1/4 cup honey (optional)
- Lemon/lime to garnish (optional)
Combine all ingredients except honey or sugar and cold water. Boil for 10 minutes. Strain. Put the cold water into a pitcher. Pour the hot tea over the cold water. You put the cold water in first, because the hot tea could melt the pitcher because it is hot. Add sugar or honey to sweeten it, stirring till dissolves. Put the pitcher into the fridge to cool. You can add slices of lime or lemon to the pitcher to give it a refreshing taste.
“I love this tea because it gives me the essence of different spices and soothing/calming effect, which embodies the full flavor of a tea.”
Share Your Recipe For The Perfect Summer ParTEA & Win!
010 months ago
There’s nothing better than a nice, refreshing sip of chilled ice tea on a hot summer’s day!
But after that heat wave we just had, we’re in need of a fun new tea recipe to help us get through the rest of the summer!
Whether it’s a concoction of tea and lots of other ingredients or regular tea with a new twist you’ve added to help spice it up, share your favorite tea recipe and you could win PMall.com’s Summer ParTEA Recipe Contest and take home your very own Personalized Beverage Server with Stand so you can serve and enjoy your delicious tea in personalized style at your next party!
To enter the contest, send an email with the subject line “Summer ParTEA Contest” to social@pmall.com before the contest ends on August 1st, 2012 with the following information:
1. Your full name and email address where we can contact you if you’ve been selected as the winner.
2. Your favorite Ice Tea Recipe and what you love most about it.
And it’s as easy as that!
The PMall Staff will read the entries and select their favorite recipe and the winner will be announced here on the A Personal Touch Blog on August 2nd.
So start trying out new tasty combinations or pull out your recipe book and find that trusty recipe you’ve loved for years – just make sure you do it before the contest ends!
We can’t wait to read all your entries – our mouths are watering just thinking about it!
Good Luck!
Personalized Ornaments Are The New Scrapbooks!
010 months ago
With PMall’s Christmas in July Sale going on this week I was looking through all of the beautiful Personalized Christmas Ornaments and started to realize just how special some of these ornaments can be!
There are a few unique PMall designs that are extra special because they help you capture a specific moment in time so in the future you’ll be able to use the ornaments to remember some of your favorite Christmas moments!
The My Wish List© Personalized Ornament, which you can personalize with any name, year and 4 items, can act like a mini scrapbook that helps you preserve some of your favorite holiday memories without all the mess! In the future you’ll look back and be thankful that you personalized the My Wish List design for each of your children year after year, because you’ll be able to reminisce about what toys and gifts they loved most each Christmas while they were growing up!
This adorable ornament can help you look back and remember some of their funniest and sweetest memories like when your son was going through his superhero phase and only wanted Spider-Man action figures and clothes (by the way, if your son is going through that phase now, you should check out our brand new line of Personalized Spider-Man Gifts!), or when your daughter asked Santa for a little brother or sister.
The ornament is usually only $12.95 but thanks to the Christmas in July Sale it’s marked down to just $10.35 from now through Sunday! Start your new tradition now and you’ll love having the opportunity to share all the fun stories with your kids when they’re older (especially when your daughter is older and fighting with her new younger sibling you can pull out the ornament and remind her that this is what wanted! 
)
PMall’s exclusive designs not only help you capture your kids’ precious moments, but your whole family’s favorite moments, too! With the Our Family© Engraved Message Ornament you can create your own mini scrapbook that can display an entire year’s worth of family events. You can have this elegant glass ornament laser engraved with up to 9 lines of personalization – those 9 lines can include your family’s name, address or your favorite family highlights of the past year, such as your vacation spots, activities, inside jokes and anything else you can think of! This beautiful ornament is usually $14.95 but is currently 70% off and can be personalized for only $4.48! Now that’s a deal you can’t pass up! Just think you’ll be able to start a new tradition where every year when you’re decorating the tree, you’ll be able to look back as a family and remember each year’s fun vacations and important accomplishments and help decide as a family what you’d like to include on the following year’s ornament!
But you don’t need to have kids to create one of these “scrapbook ornaments.”
The Our Life Together© Personalized Couple’s Ornament is the perfect way for newlyweds to remember the details of their wedding while also starting their own ornament collection as a married couple! The stunning glass ornament is usually $14.95 but is on sale for only $4.48 until Sunday and can be engraved with the couple’s names and up to 9 lines of personalization. If you’re personalizing it as a wedding keepsake you can include the ceremony’s location, date, the first song you danced to, the flowers you used and more.
However, I think this design is a perfect way to celebrate your anniversary year after year – after all, who says you have to save this beautiful gifts for Christmas!? Each year you can personalize it with all your firsts (vacation, purchasing a home, adopting a pet, etc.), triumphs (promotions at work, buying a new car, getting pregnant) and struggles that you went through and overcame together (losing a job or loved one) so you can look back and be proud of what you have made it through together as a team.
Whether it’s for your anniversary, your kids or your entire family, you are sure to find the perfect PMall Personalized Christmas Ornament for you! So put down the glue stick, close the scrapbooks and stow the memory boxes … forget about all of the fuss and head over to PMall to create a one-of-a-kind keepsake before the Christmas in July Sale ends Sunday, July 8th!
It may only take you a couple minutes to create your gorgeous personalized ornament, but you’re sure to enjoy your little time capsule for many years to come!
Have You Seen The Gift Everyone Is Talking About!?
010 months ago
Wow! It looks like PMall.com is going to have to make room in the Customer Favorites Store for the gift that everyone seems to be talking about!
Our Mr. & Mrs. Self-Inking Address Stamper has been making the rounds on Pinterest - so much so that it was featured on Pinterest’s Popular Page and has made appearances on the main Wedding & Events Page numerous times!
People have been “pinning” it like crazy onto boards with names like ”Wedding Gift Ideas” “Products I Love” and “I WANT!” with brides leaving comments saying the stamp was their “favorite wedding gift,” a ”time saver and life saver!” or their “secret weapon!” With all the buzz our personalized gift has created, we wanted to make sure we shared what everyone is talking about with our A Personal Touch readers!
There seem to be 4 main reasons why people are falling in love with our stamp:
1. The “cute” design! We’ve never seen the word “CUTE!” written so much! Brides love the hearts and the ”Mr. & Mrs.” theme and since it’s a PMall exclusive design, they know they’re getting a one-of-a-kind gift they won’t find anywhere else!
2. It’s “very affordable!” The stamp is only $24.95 (or hurry over to PMall now because as of this posting, the stamp is on sale for just $21.20!) so you can save a bundle buying the one stamp instead of paying big bucks for a large amount of return address labels, especially because …
3. It’s self-inking! You don’t have to spend extra money on a separate ink pad plus you get to pick out which color you want the stamp to be (you have the option to choose 1 of the 5 available colors: black, blue, red, purple and green)! And last but not least …
4. It “saves soooo much time!” Instead of spending a ton of time writing each return address label by hand, peeling off stickers or licking gross-tasting labels, all you’ll have to do is press down once and you’ll have a professional-looking stamp that adds a personal touch to your invitations or Thank You notes!
See for yourself what everyone is talking about by reading the comments people are writing on just one of several “pins” that we’ve seen all over Pinterest!
But don’t worry; you don’t have to be a bride or wedding guest to enjoy the benefits of this cute gift idea! PMall’s Personalized Stationary Store has a wide selection of Personalized Return Address Label Stamps that people are falling in love with, too!
In addition to the Mr. & Mrs. design, the Your Names© Stamp (at right) 
and the Namely Yours© Stamp (at left) have started to become popular on Pinterest, as well!
So now that you know all the benefits and have heard all the great things people are saying, head over and check out all of PMall’s Personalized Address Stamps so you can start saving time and money like everyone else!
