Yes, that's right! There are people in the world who are ready not only to buy a gift, but also to come up with an enchanting presentation. In other words, there are those who want to add emotions to a tangible object and give delight.
I quote a letter from a reader of the “Holiday Again” website: “...I have such a huge request to you. Maybe you can tell me how to give my husband a trip to Paris in an original way... My husband dreams, and I dream too... I decided to give him a birthday present... I REALLY want to give him an original gift... very... but nothing other than a box-in-a-box-and-himself I couldn’t find it on the Internet... HELP!”
So here it is. I won’t repeat the tips about looking for a gift in an apartment using arrows and opening a dozen boxes. There really are a lot of them.
Now I have collected ideas that require time and money. Saving is possible if you have many friends with the same desire to give each other joy.
Phone surprises
Firstly, you can ask a dozen friends who, at a certain time, will send an SMS with a similar text: “Lucky, you’re going to Paris”... Let our birthday boy be surprised first, then give him tickets.
Secondly, there are now a lot of greeting services in which it is easy to order any text in the voice of the president of the country or a famous artist. It turns out to be quite fun - good way play up the presentation of a gift.
Unexpected courier
This is a situation where your gift is presented by a bright character. The surprise effect should work. Depending on where the birthday person is located, choose suitable option:
Courier in a life-size puppet costume
Sometimes you come across absolutely incomparable costumes; it will be incredibly pleasant to have fun and take a photo with such a courier. True, even if a five-minute congratulation is expected, a huge hare or lion can only be rented for a day. However, you can always reach an agreement with the event organizers on favorable terms.
Angels and butterflies
This is our specific proposal. The idea is that two angels (little girls) suddenly approach the hero of the occasion in a restaurant, read special poems and open a box with tropical butterflies. Impressive, verified!
Serious courier with frivolous documents
The presentation of a gift can be entrusted to the most ordinary-looking person in a working mood. He must give the birthday person a bunch of documents to sign for the delivery of a year’s supply of “Happiness”, “Health”, “Love”, “Luck”, etc. For each document there is a separate sheet and a place for the signature “I have no complaints.” The gift can be given at the very end.
Artist in character
If you are planning not just a feast, but theme party, it makes sense to dress the courier in the costume of the desired character. A ballerina, a pirate, a dude, a gangster, a pioneer, a musketeer, and so on can give an original gift. It all depends on the holiday you decide on.
Peddler
I used this word to describe the distributors of goods who go door to door with advertising speeches. Remember how they take out frying pans, irons, lamps from a huge bag and offer to give them as a gift if you buy just one thing for 10,000 rubles. This is the kind of performance that needs to be performed, only at the moment when the birthday boy prays and says that he “doesn’t need anything”, give the gift you have prepared.
I think there are enough examples, your imagination can run wild :-).
Balloon delivery
Nowadays they make such beautiful compositions from balloons that you can easily find a suitable option. I noticed that balloons“inflate” even the most modest gift to incredible levels of happiness. A surprising effect, but it's true. You can even just tie the box to a bunch of helium balloons, it’s already much more festive, you’ll agree.
Bang bang...
Actually, everything is already clear from the name. It will be noisy.
If the gift is small and light (a travel package, theater tickets, a small box of decorations), you can order a surprise balloon. This is such a huge transparent ball in which many, many small balls, streamers, golden confetti, and notes with congratulations are placed. At the right moment, pierce the ball, let your hero of the day look for his gift among the multi-colored madness.
You can decorate the room with balloons, scatter them on the floor and furniture. At this moment, the birthday boy should already be pleased. Now we suggest you find one ball, inside of which you hid the gift. Naturally, it is also small and light.
Show
Here, before the presentation of the gift, there is a small concert. Artists of different genres are ready to end their performances with very personal wishes, so I’ll make a list of those who are most often called. The performance lasts 10-15 minutes:
- gypsies (“He came to us, he came to us..”)
- magician (shows a micromagic session and conjures a gift in a hat)
- saxophonist (any other musician performing solo)
- vocal duet or trio
- fire show (looks good only in the evening outside)
- dancing couple
If it happens in an office or a restaurant, you can include congratulations...
- soap bubble show (visit inside soap bubble All children from 2 to 102 years old dream of their birthday)
- sand show with an individual story
- show “Chemistry with Humor” (complete delight, believe me)
In all these speeches the birthday boy will be given special attention, original gift delivery is guaranteed. Often, by the way, the cost of the show is several times higher than the price of the gift. I think if you shift the emphasis towards emotions and give one flower or balloon, no one will be offended.
Many people ask the question “Is it possible to give playing cards as gifts?” Of course, such gifts can be given, except in cases where the recipient is a very religious person.
A variety of games that use cards are very popular among men, so they are often presented as gifts to work colleagues, friends, godfathers or husbands.
In this article we will tell you which cards to choose and how to pack them. And for those who want to make a gift with their own hands, we will offer an unusual master class. 
Selection secrets
There are two important points that should be taken into account when choosing almost any gift - quality and design.
If the first point depends on the conscientiousness of the seller and your attentiveness, then with the second everything is a little more complicated, because the design directly determines whether you like the surprise or not.
To make things easier for you, we will offer several variations of gift card sets and tips on who to give them to:
Interesting! Do you want to know what cards mean in dreams? It is important to remember which suit came to you in a dream; if it is worms, then changes in love affairs await you; spades - expect trouble; diamonds - a possible promotion up the career ladder; clubs - you need to monitor your finances.
How to make a prize yourself?
You can not only buy playing cards, but also make them yourself. It seems to you that this is unrealistic, well, we are ready to prove the opposite. So, first of all, you need to prepare the materials necessary for work:
- Identical cards made of thick cardboard or very thin plastic (36 or 54 pieces);
- checkered (for the back side);
- A variety of pictures (also self-adhesive) of the same theme, for example, emoticons, or cartoon characters (36 or 54 pieces);
- Suit icons: diamonds, clubs, hearts, spades, (according to the number of cards) on self-adhesive stickers.
All self-adhesive pictures can be ordered from any advertising agency in your city.
First, carefully tape the backs of the cards. Then proceed to facials. To make everything perfect, start with the icons, and only then (in the center) attach the selected pictures.
Decorating ideas
If you don't need to make cards, since you've already bought gift set, you can try your hand at decorating a gift, we offer two cool ideas to choose from:
Stylish classic
If you are going to give a gift to your boss, work colleague or stranger, then... To make it you will need:
- White gift bag (without handles);
- Black paper;
- Scissors;
- Glue.
Cut out three circles (the size of a small button) and a bow from black paper. Place the gift in the bag, fold the remaining part on top and glue a bow on it. Attach three circles at the bottom (horizontally) at the same distance from each other.
Cards as a gift
Creative
If you bought a present for a close relative or friend, then creativity is quite appropriate. need to:
- Gift box;
- White wrapping paper;
- Red and black markers;
- Twine.
Place the gift in the box and wrap it in paper. Now take a red marker and start drawing card suits (in a chaotic order) of the same color (diamonds, hearts). Then take a black marker and draw black suits (spade, club). At the end, tie it with twine and tie a bow.
What will I do with this gift?
2 sets of cards are prepared in advance: the first set contains the names of the gifts (even better if they are pictures with images), and the second set contains the actions that need to be done with this gift. Guests take turns taking out cards from the first set and reading them out loud. For example: “I will give the birthday boy a cake.” The birthday boy randomly pulls out a card from the second set and reads the answer he received: “I’ll sit on him and go” or: “I’ll put him in a cage.” Since there are rarely correct matches, it is fun - children are very amused by the awkward answers.
Options for cards for guests with gift names:
- bouquet of flowers
- puppy
- mandarin
- mirror
- ball
- comb
- rug
- nuts
- bike
- kitty
- goldfish
- new outfit
- ball
- punching bag
- parrot
- chandelier
- telephone
- souvenir
Options for cards for the birthday boy - answers to what he will do with the gifts:
- eat with friends
- I'll put it in a vase
- I'll put on a collar and take you for a walk
- I'll wrap my neck and stop coughing
- I’ll divide it into slices and treat it to my friends
- I'll make faces
- I'll inflate and release into the sky
- I'll give myself a new hairstyle
- lay the bed on the floor
- I'll chew it and eat it
- I'll sit down and go
- I'll take you in my arms and stroke you
- I'll let you swim in the aquarium
- I'll iron it and hang it in the closet
- I'll throw it up and catch you
- I'll start practicing punches
- I'll put you in a cage
- I'll hang it from the ceiling
- I will use it to talk to friends
- I'll put it on the shelf and admire it
The most needed "gift"
A comic prank game for the birthday boy. The host prepares “gifts” in advance for the hero of the occasion: he puts in a bag all the unnecessary small things that are in the house, and the things do not necessarily have to be new. These could be: a clothespin, a pencil, an eraser, a paper clip, a hair tie, soap, a balloon, candy, a burnt-out light bulb, rope, an empty jar, a cocktail straw, a rubber glove, a tea bag, etc.
Guests take turns approaching the bag and pulling out “gifts” at random. Their task is to make it interesting to present the item they received: to prove that this item is the coolest and most necessary for the birthday person. The winner is chosen by the birthday boy - the one who gave the most successful and fun gift.
It is very important not only to choose a gift, but also to present it in an unusual, original way. Not many people can boast of indescribable emotions and delight from receiving a gift. Consider 5 original ideas how to combine good gift with a draw.
This option for presenting a gift is quite simple to implement and is suitable for a small and light gift - a movie ticket, money, a trip abroad, a shopping certificate.
You need to take a large box (can be from some kind of equipment), decorate it beautifully and festively. The gift must be tied to an armful of helium balloons and placed at the bottom of the box along with them. When the recipient opens the box, a bunch of beautiful balls fly out at him (usually in a panic the person begins to catch them), and a long-awaited gift rises on the bunch. The hero of the occasion and everyone around will receive a sea of positive emotions.
Idea two
The idea is designed for students, but if it is slightly adjusted, it can be used in offices, schools and other institutions.
An announcement is posted near the dean's office that the person who is going to be pranked is asked to appear at the dean's office regarding expulsion (transfer to another faculty). It is advisable to persuade the secretary, and if possible, then the dean. A person who comes to the dean’s office waits for the dean for some time and is worried. Instead of the dean, friends come out and present a gift. If a person does not understand jokes, then this idea will not work, because the hero of the occasion should receive positive emotions, not resentment, grief.
Idea three
The idea is designed for a small gift that can easily be placed in an inflatable ball.
The idea is this: you need to buy a large, dense inflatable ball in advance, write a lot of wishes and poems on separate multi-colored pieces of paper, buy streamers, small candies and “stuff” the ball with all this and, of course, put it inside and main gift. The balloon is inflated and solemnly presented to the hero of the occasion, who pops it and, among the multi-colored madness, looks for his gift, while reading nice wishes.
You can decorate the room with multi-colored ordinary balloons. Place a gift in one of the balloons and invite the birthday person to find it. A beautifully decorated room will already delight a person, and searching for a surprise will only enhance the effect of surprise.
Idea four
To implement this difficult idea, you will need some preparation and a person with artistic inclinations.
Let's say a person has long dreamed of a beautiful vase, a set of glasses, a large piggy bank, a figurine, a frame, and so on. We carefully remove the gift from the box (it is desirable that the box is recognizable) and hide it in a safe place. We fill the box with glass or other material similar to the one from which this item is made. We pack carefully. It is necessary to wait for the right moment and solemnly bring the gift to the victim of the prank.
The idea is this: the person who is about to give a gift trips and drops the stand box. Everyone hears the distinct sound of broken glass. The birthday boy removes the packaging from the gift and sees the treasured box with the gift, which, to his knowledge, is unfortunately broken.
It is advisable to wait a few minutes, and then “reveal all the cards” and take out the gift intact and unharmed!
Idea five
Surely, each of us has more than once met a person who walks around apartments with a bag of goods and offers to give them to you, subject to the purchase of one of the goods. This is the kind of performance that needs to be performed with the hero of the occasion. At the moment when a person prays and says that he doesn’t need anything, give him such a long-awaited gift.
It is known about this deck that The prototypes for the kings and queens in this deck were the participants in the last costume ball at the Romanov imperial court in February 1903.
The main requirement for those invited was to appear in costumes from the 17th century. The luxurious celebration in the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg went down in history as the most famous and grandiose ball of the reign of Nicholas II and as the last court ball of Imperial Russia. Photographers captured all the famous participants in this event, which made it possible to recreate these images in playing cards.
In 1911, German craftsmen from the Dondorf factory developed sketches for the cards, and in 1913 they were printed in St. Petersburg at the Alexander Manufactory. The release of the deck called “Russian Style” was timed to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. After the revolution, the manufactory was closed, in 1923 it resumed work and again began producing cards based on pre-revolutionary sketches. Later, Soviet illustrator Yuri Ivanov copied the “Russian Style” cards from the original deck for offset printing.
This is such a wonderful story.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.
This post reminded me of my own collection of playing cards (yes, not only Venetian glass and masks, but also card decks)
I ran to my bins, which, as many people know, are widely distributed between the dacha, Kyiv and Moscow apartments - to see what I have here, in Kyiv. And it turned out that there is still something, although the main part of the collection is outside the city, unfortunately. But I’ll show you something anyway.
But first, a little background.
My mother is an avid gambler and solitaire lover. Therefore, since childhood, I knew a lot and played solitaire. And, accordingly, she knew how to play many card games - her mother taught her. A favorite pastime on a rainy day at the dacha is to play solitaire, play canasta, fool or, later, preference or poker. My mother, a top-class player, taught me many card games. And she instilled in me great respect for this type of leisure. I play cards well, but my level is not comparable to my mother's. But this “high gaming culture” was inherited by my middle son: he plays poker and the fool very well, I’m already teaching him preference. Well, the child plays chess very well. And for a long time now. This is how, through a generation, the ability to think in games is passed on))
Therefore, in our house we always had a lot of different decks of cards, both solitaire and gaming, 32 sheets, 55 sheets, 2 decks, etc. All the friends at home knew very well that one of the best and most desired gifts was a new unusual deck of cards. Moreover, these cards were not stored behind glass: they were played without fail. Since then, although I am not the coolest player in this life, I have no problem distinguishing between cards with an unfamiliar design. Which is sometimes an advantage, you will agree.
I started collecting different card decks at the same time that I was actively traveling. Therefore, the first decks of my collection appeared about 10 years ago. And I remember the very first one well. It was a set of mini solitaire cards from the Austrian company Piatnik, which were 30x55 mm in size, as opposed to the classic 57x89mm. Here they are, tiny, 3x5 cm:
I bought them in Israel. Then my mother saw them, gasped, and said that my grandfather’s deck of solitaire cards had exactly the same shirts back in her childhood - and, of course, I gave them to my mother. They are really very interesting, very tiny, and therefore they can be used to play the largest solitaire games even on a very small table. Comfortable!
Well, here we go...
Now I have more than 60 diverse decks of cards from all over the world, I couldn’t count more precisely. Among them are very rare ones, there are also frankly souvenir disposable ones, which I like to play with or let children play with.
And, of course, there are favorites, so to speak.
And now I will show you some of this.
And since it all started with Piatnik, then, of course, I like their solitaire cards the most.
Here's what I already have:
This is here in Kyiv:
There is also a series of “Kaysers”, “Sun King”, “Japanese miniature”, “Romanovs” and “Slavic style”.
Here they are:
This is the collection I dream of collecting in its entirety. It contains very rare, even unique specimens.
I already have some things, but everything is at the dacha, and therefore I don’t remember what exactly I already have:
Another uniquely beautiful company, Italian Lo Scarabeo
I also have some, about 11 or 12. I really like the way they design their decks: 
