Shopping for Men

Basket: Home Goods  || Apron: Home Goods || Beer: Trader Joe's || T-Shirt: Similar || Beard Wash: Lush

My husbands birthday was this past weekend, and like most women, I have a hard time figuring out what to buy for him.  Why are men so hard to shop for?!  After contemplating for a while what I was going to get him I came up with the idea above, it basically all stemmed from the awesome drink basket, which I found at Home Goods.  I'll break it down so you can see what all is in the "basket".  Above you will find links to all of the gifts, keep in mind that most of them are available at many different stores as well. 

(1)  We bought a Traeger grill last year and it's basically our favorite way to cook now.  We tried making stuffed jalapeños one time but just didn't quite get the technique down, so when I saw this set I knew I had to get it for him.  And I figured an outdoor apron would be perfect to pair it with.  I got both of these items at Home Goods but I'm sure you could find them just about anywhere.

Side note: I actually gave him the jalapeño set the night before his birthday because we were making jalapeño popcorn using fresh jalapeños, the set comes with a tool to clean out the peppers so I figured we might as well use that rather than the knife, spoon, jalapeño juice in our (okay, my) eye fiasco that we usually go through.  Oh and if you didn't already know, our entire family is obsessed with homemade popcorn.  Every Friday night for as long as we can remember our family would pick out a movie to watch and make a bunch of stovetop popcorn.  It's our favorite tradition that we take very seriously & all three of us sisters make sure it is carried on by each of our families.

(2) He's beer obsessed.  But not any type of beer, it has to be the dark strong flavored stuff.  I personally can't handle it, a Corona with a lime slice is my ideal beer.  I picked up these two at Tarder Joe's and honestly, I just picked these two cause I thought they looked fancy, haha! 

(3) I found this shirt at Target when I was out shopping with my mom and sisters while they were visiting.  At the time they didn't have it in his size but I went back a couple weeks later and was so excited to find it!  I probably looked insane talking about how awesome it was to my 12month old who was just looking at me like I was showing her a brick wall.  

(4) I'm a huge fan of Lush products!  For Christmas last year I got him two soaps from there and he loved one of them, he didn't care for the sent of the other but that didn't bother me since it just meant I could put it in the guest bathroom as a hand soap instead. I made sure to use that sink for hand washing ever since I put it in there.  We don't have a Lush close to us but I made the half hour trip to the mall the other day for some shopping & an excuse to stay out of the heat.  When I saw this wash I knew it would be prefect since he just started growing his beard out again.  Last night he said to me (pointing to the jar of facial wash) "did you smell this?"  I figured that meant he didn't like the sent, again...  I replied, "Umm, yeah I did.  Why?"  He said "cause it smells amazing!"  Insert sigh of relief(!) 

And that's it!  I wrapped one of the bottles in tissue paper and then realized I didn't have any more so I may or may not have used napkins for the rest of the fillers... Whatever works, right?! 

I hope this helps give you some ideas for the men in your life!  Doing something like this basket is a great Father's Day gift as well, which is right (yikes!) around the corner.  My main tip for buying gifts for guys is just to get simple stuff, they don't want random little nicknacks that they will probably never use.  And I'm speaking from experience, haha.  I have found that food, some type of drink & products like that facial wash are good because they will actually get used, rather than just set somewhere and forgotten about.    

Oh and if all else fails... 

 throw something Star Wars related in there and it's a guaranteed winner.

~Amy