Exploring : Home and Garden

We all have a friend who's utterly addicted to their daily Starbucks run. You can help them save some green in the new year by giving them the gift of DIY coffee drinks. This kit ($10) contains the same caramel sauce and vanilla syrup used to make Starbucks' signature caramel macchiatos. It'll save them time (no more waiting in line) and money (no more $4 drinks!).

Also available: Starbucks' Gingerbread Syrup and Starbucks' Peppermint Syrup ($11 each).

Every year, my mom sends out a family Christmas card to literally everyone she has ever met. How she tracks down their addresses is beyond me (she must have an in with Santa). She loves to send out homemade collages of snapshots depicting the past year: My little brother holding a martial arts trophy, me in cap and gown, our family camping trip (picture a shot of me in pig tails, sans makeup and shower). Once a stellar report card got thrown in for good measure. Come January 1st, she starts collecting new mementos for the next Christmas card and I spend the next 12 months overcoming embarrassment.

This year, I hope to end the holiday card TMI by giving my mom these classy and—most importantly—understated Victorian Christmas Cards ($18 per set) or these cheeky Mad Libs Holiday Cards from Etsy ($10 per set). Hopefully she'll take the hint. If not, she can fold the collage up in these cute cards.

Do you send out holiday greeting cards?

Allow your favorite home chef to hone his cooking skills with the gift of this cleverly designed spice rack from Dean & Deluca. The rack, which has been added to nearly 900 lists on Kaboodle (!!), comes stocked with forty test tubes full of herbs and spices—everything from allspice to thyme. Just make sure you're invited over for dinner when your lucky recipient tests it out!