Some good ideas from the advertisers...

I actually love reading my ads and have come up with some semi-romantic diy gift ideas from them. Here are a few...

- The personalized wine label. No reason you can't do this on your home computer. The only thing you wouldn’t want to do is cover up the label on a better bottle. The homemade labels would be best on a decent but not-especially-special bottle of Shiraz or chardonnay.

- Themed gift baskets. It's always better to do this from scratch. Anything fresh with be fresher and all of the items will better reflect the receiver's taste and your style. Look at the ads for some general ideas and go from there. You can get baskets and fillers at A.C. Moore or Micheals. I'm a big fan of hitting the home goods aisles at Marshall's for gourmet goods. A great item that can be a part of a variety of gift baskets (get-well-soon, new mommy, romantic, health...) is the glass-topped carafe. You can order a case of six at http://www.villagekitchen.com/mfg/arc/luminarc/carafe_decanter/carafes_bedside.html.

- Celebrity wines. This is just a silly idea. That said, you can usually find out about a celeb's general preferences and make a gift pack for a star-crazed friend based on them. Imagine a "Miley Cyrus' Favorites" themed basked for a pre-teen.

- Gift cards. You can get many gift cards at a slight discount on E-Bay, www.swapagift.com, and www.plasticjungle.com. The latter two will allow you to swap that gift card to Talbot’s that's better suited to Grannie. My husband and I once bought a $500 gift card for Brooks Brothers for $350, though the deals tend not to be that good.