Mosaic Recycled Placemat $6.95 Made from recycled milk and juice cartons, this place mat can double as a tray. Stare at it intently enough and you'll see letter and word fragments.

Cool Jazz Guitar Ice Stirrers $6.99 Show the rock star in your life you care with an electric-guitar ice cube tray. It makes popsicles, too!

Lisa Congdon iPop Big Click Magnet $7 Refrigerator magnets are a gifting mainstay, but too often they veer into wine-country kitsch or the generic dots and poetry. This one's big, cute, and really strong.

Southern Candymakers 4 Piece Favor $7.95 Mix and match creamy praline candies and caramel tortues (turtles) from one of New Orleans's best and oldest sweet shops.

Fiskars Big Grip Garden Knife $8.99 A take-it-to-a-desert-island gardening tool that lets you whack, hack, dig, and saw.

Pick Your Nose Party Cups $9.95 for a set of 12 Add laughter to someone's next shindig with these paper cups.

Ceramic Egg Rack $10–$15 For the person who even wants the inside of his fridge to look good. And when this egg holder is released from the refrigerator, it can be used to serve deviled eggs.

Sesame Letterpress Coasters Box Set $12 for a set of eight Jump on the cutesy letterpress trend with these cardboard coasters; each one has a different animal or flower on it. Don't spill!

Mrs. Meyer's Snap Pea Spring Cleaning Kit $14.99 Aromatherapy cleaning supplies aren't the kind of thing most people buy for themselves—exactly why they make great gifts. In new snap pea scent!

Delicious Circle Kabobs $18 for a set of eight Keep grilling guests from stabbing one another with circular metal skewers that fit perfectly on a plate.

Salad Bowl by Present Time $18 Hard to tell where the bowl begins and the salad ends with this trompe l'oeil plastic serving bowl. Present Time also makes bowls with popcorn, potato chip, and fruit images on the inside.

Squirrel Brand Nut Tin $18.99–$23.99 for an 18-ounce tin We sampled these nuts from hundred-plus-year-old Squirrel Brand and fell in love. Our favorites were the blistered peanuts, black truffle almonds, and crème caramel pecans. Classy tins!

Jalapeño Pepper Roaster $19.95 Williams-Sonoma solves a problem we didn't realize we had: This stand holds homemade jalapeño poppers upright on the grill so the filling won't spill out.

Taylor Meat Thermometer $19.95 CHOW's here to spread the gospel of the meat thermometer—it takes the scary guesswork out of doneness when cooking meat! This one has a vintage-Americana vibe.

Built NY Six Pack Tote: Real Tree Camouflage $22.99 This insulated six-pack carrier will keep your beers cool at a picnic and camouflaged from beer snipers.

Ma'amoul Pastry Cookies $24 for eight cookies These Middle Eastern cookies are made by hand-pressing shortbreadlike dough into traditional wooden molds and filling the domed shapes with dried apricot purée, pistachios, dates, or walnuts and dates. They're crumbly, lightly scented with rose water, and not too sweet.

Atelier LZC Guirlande and Oiseaux Tea Towels $24 for both These tea towels are decidedly unfrumpy. They're from a French design collective, by way of the great Decatur, Georgia, housewares store Heliotrope.

Salad Plant $25 A cute plastic flowerpot that can hold vinaigrette, with standing plant-leaf salad tossers.

Tovolo Green Shooting Star Pop Molds and Pops! Icy Treats for Everyone $28.90 for both The recipes in Pops! sound crazy good (PB and sesame raspberry pops, for instance). You can try them out in these snazzy molds.

Camerons Gourmet Mini Smoker $29.50 Smoke with less commitment: This mini version works on the stovetop and holds enough food for just a few people, as well as taking up less of your precious storage space.

Sippin' Seat Flask Stadium Seat Cushion $29.95 Everyone knows at least one person who would think this is the most awesome gift ever. The stadium cushion hides booze and comes complete with sippin' tube!

Zak Recycled Confetti Mixing Bowls $31.95 for a set of four A perfect starter set for a recent graduate, a shacked-up couple, or anybody looking to upgrade from a random, ugly assortment of bowls. Based on retro-’50s design, these are made from recycled melamine.

Dry Bones Salt and Pepper Shakers $32 Matte ceramic with cork closures, Chris Stiles's shakers are classy, unique, and easy to refill.

Poketo Plates $32 for a set of two The loopy, psychedelic designs on these picnic-fabulous melamine plates are by Tokyo artists PCP and Ogi.

Custom Cheese Assortment from Nala's Fromagerie $45 for everything pictured Nala's Fromagerie carries hard-to-find cheeses from small Wisconsin producers (and the rest of the world). Put together your own gift pack. Pictured here are some of Wisconsin's best artisan varieties.

The Lunch Box by Oots $45.50 A nice big lunch box that fits multiple little containers of food and is designed to hold a water bottle under the handle.

Table Slice Trivet $50 This felted trivet looks like the inner rings of a tree trunk in a world inhabited by fairies and elves.

Lodge Logic Combo Cooker $55.95 Great for car camping, this medium-sized cast iron Dutch oven comes preseasoned, and it's got a skillet that doubles as the oven's lid.

Mori Ex Cacao Gift Set $65 From high-end Los Angeles candy maker Valerie Confections comes the ultimate goth gift: three skull-shaped truffles in Scorched Caramel, Bitter Brandied Cherry, and Curious Chili flavors.

Arktura Strand Tray Black $69 Stylish and spider web–esque, this raised metal tray keeps hot dishes off sensitive surfaces.

Bodum Bistro Toaster $79.95 Hot colors, hot bread. The new Bodum toasters come in a rainbow of fun hues and feature a rubbery, easy-to-clean surface.

Green Onion Glasses and CapRock Organic Dry Gin $79.99 for everything pictured CapRock gin is made from organic apples grown on winery Jack Rabbit Hill's biodynamic farm in western Colorado's North Fork Valley. Package it with two pretty green glasses made from recycled bottles, and you've got a classy cocktail in the making.

Charcoal Water Pitcher $85 Escape the plastic reign of Brita with this glass water filter that purifies with Iouseki stones from the mountains of Japan and charcoal. Pretty enough to go from fridge to table.

Beech Hill Farm Bison Rib-Eyes $85.50 for six Forget Omaha Steaks: Bison is healthier than beef, and more meat/less fat means a better value.

John Boos Reversible Maple Cutting Board $85.95 A really big, chunky cutting board is something you don't think you need until you get one; then you can't live without it. This reversible John Boos model, used by the pros, is a mega 20 inches by 15 inches and 2 1/4 inches thick.

Eva Solo Handblown Glass French Press with Sweater Cozy $100 It's hard to get excited about yet another coffee maker, but we're excited about this one: It makes something like cowboy coffee, where you just soak ground coffee in boiling water. But in this case, you pour it out through a little filter in the top so you don't drink the grounds. It comes with a cute brown sweater cozy, too.

Cuisinart Stainless Steel Electric Pressure Cooker and Rancho Gordo Desert Island Sampler $173.75 for both The Cuisinart electric pressure cooker can act as either a quick cooker or a slow cooker, depending on the settings. Give it with a gift pack of heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo, including the pretty black-and-white-speckled Vaqueros.

Photosynthesis Glasses $184 for two We fell in love with these handblown glass goblets by Berkeley, California, glass blower Lee Miltier while drinking vegetable kombucha out of them at the Cultured Pickle Shop. One-of-a-kind and therefore slightly different sizes, they add major magic to any beverage. Call Photosynthesis (510-649-1977) to place an order.

Anuva Vinos Wine Club $195 every 90 days for six wines
OR David Coffaro Dave's Wine Club $60 per quarterly shipment of three wines
Wine clubs are fun, but it's hard to know which ones are good. These two are very good, and different. Anuva's wines are from a variety of small Argentine producers, blind-selected by a jury of pro tasters in Buenos Aires. David Coffaro is a small, unpretentious winemaker from Sonoma County, California, whose big red blends are guaranteed crowd-pleasers.

All-Clad LTD Nonstick Grande Griddle, Old Mountain Rooster Press, and Blis Bourbon Barrel-Aged Maple Syrup $210.99 for everything pictured Indulge your inner homesteader with a griddle you can throw across two stovetop burners to cook a ton of pancakes—and other things—all at once. The old-timey rooster grill press keeps bacon flat or compresses panini sandwiches. Top your griddle cakes with maple syrup aged in bourbon barrels from Williams-Sonoma.

Droog Bottoms Up Doorbell $238 This doorbell produces the actual sound of wineglasses clinking when your guests arrive, making the evening's first toast.

My China Rim Emperor Serving Plate $275 A piece of a full china set, this charger is pretty on its own as a serving plate. The bird design and red-blue color scheme are very of-the-moment, and the gold-leaf detailing screams "rich girl."

Redondo Iglesias Bone-In Jamón Serrano and Ham Holder $294 for both Real Spanish country ham, complete with its own stand, so you can display it in your home and cut pieces off whenever you feel like it. Hell yeah.

Le Creuset 9-Piece Cookware Set $399.99 La Creuset cookware is beloved for its natural nonstick enamel surfaces, durability, ability to maintain and conduct heat evenly, and beautiful design. This set includes a Dutch oven, skillet, stockpot, casserole, and saucepan, and is a deal at this price. (Caribbean blue is pictured.)

Witches' Kitchen Set of 6 Utensils $770 Eye of newt, wing of bat, and a side of dog tongue. Hand-carved mahogany "witch's tools" from Artecnica's Design with Conscience line, made in Guatemala; the set contains pokers, forks, little spoons, a dagger, and—what do you do with the wooden hand? So mysterious.