Gifts for men who love gardening

I have to admit to not being a big gardener, but I know plenty of men who are. It seems that once you get started on gardening it just gets into your blood.

Not in my blood, but I can see how it happens.

Here's a gift idea for a man who loves his gardening. It's something that I've never even thought of before, and when I saw it I wondered why it hadn't been done before.

A time lapse photo of his garden growing.

Now of course with modern technology we even have cameras in our phones. So why not a camera in our garden, where it can record, over time, how our garden grows.

What a great idea.

He can either watch a time lapse of one particular favorite plant grow, or perhaps an entire area of his garden. And he gets four months of use from 4 AA batteries.

A hot mens gift idea for a gardening man.

Get it from Hammacher Schlemmer, one of the best places on the web to find innovative gift ideas like this one.

When you get to their website type timelapse into their search and there it is. Read more

Should you consider buying your man skin care products?

Men's skin care products have been around for quite a while, and the skin care industry is huge for women of course. Recently I've been reading a bit about skin care products and anti aging products, for reasons unconnected with this blog.

Actually, looking for a gift for my wife.

I've been stunned by what I've found. The skincare and anti aging industry is pretty much unregulated by the FDA and there are all sorts of ingredients in skin care products and anti aging products that are considered suspect or downright dangerous. I had no idea.

There are actually whole organizations dedicated to trying to force the government and/or the skin care industry to clean up their products and make them safe. And on top of that it seems so many of these products don't even work.

One of these organizations is called the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. If you're interested in this stuff see what they have to say.

So before I got to buying some skin care products for my wife I did quite a bit of research and found some wonderful organic and quite natural skin care products that don't have any nasty ingredients in them, and work. While I was browsing around their site I started looking at their men's skin care products and got to thinking.

Do skin care and anti aging products for men make a good gift?

Interesting. I don't use skin care products, and have never done so. Until I started my reading I would never have even thought of it, it just wasn't a guy thing. However after doing quite some reading and finding out about the importance of taking care of yourself, and your skin, I'm thinking of starting.

After all, I exercise regularly, I'm a cyclist. And I try to eat a healthy diet. So why shouldn't I start trying to take care of my skin, the largest organ in/on my body, as well as the rest of my body.

And I've been sunburned heaps, which is really bad for your skin, back in the days when I used to do a lot of surging and skin cancer was something that no one knew about.

So I'd be quite happy to get a range of skin care products as a gift.

However if your man is like I was a few days ago, he knows nothing about skin care, then I wouldn't just get him to open up a gift box on his birthday and find a bottle of mens moisturizer in it. You don't know what reaction you might get.

So first I'd talk a little to him about the importance of taking good care of himself, and his skin, and see how he reacts. Maybe show him a little of the information on the website of the company making the skin care products I've bought.

Read the signals and see whether you think he'd appreciate it, then try a small gift of a skin care product and see how it goes down.

If he doesn't show any interest then get him that NFL jersey he's always wanted.

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Sometimes it's hard buying for older men. They've got everything. But not these.

What do you buy for a present for an older man? Maybe it's his 50th  birthday, or perhaps you've got a Christmas gift to buy for a 60 year old man. What is there that he'd like to have but he hasn't got already?

Because if he's 60, say, he's had 60 years of gifts bought for him.

He's earned money, bought what he wants, and accordingly isn't so easy to buy for.

So what gift ideas have I been able to come up with for a vintage man?

How about vintage memories for the older man? A vintage army calendar, for example? Or perhaps a vintage Maryland football calendar. Or a superman calendar?

These are a few of the hundreds of vintage reproductions of calendars, stationary, postcards and lots more that you can find at Asgard Press.

(STOP PRESS CLICK HERE TO GET THESE AT A 10% DISCOUNT. When Asgard found that I'd written about their products they sent me a promo code so that my visitors could get a 10% discount when they come from my site. Click the link above to get your discount. Or click on any product to do so.)

All good memories for him.

I've spent quite some time browsing around and there's a massive stack of gift ideas, enough to keep anyone happy if they're looking for a gift idea for the older man.

There's something for everyone.

So if you've got, for example, a 60th birthday gift for dad to buy, check out the wide range of vintage gift ideas and see if you can't find something there that would bring back some memories for him. Read more

Does your man love to cook? Does he love chicken?

I love to cook, I've said that before. I do the cooking for my family. And I love chicken. I cook chicken in just about every way I can, my favorite is probably roasted. Lately I've discovered corn fed chicken. Yum.

There are some wonderful chicken recipes around, you could spend your whole life trying to cook them all and only scratch the surface.

And of course there's all sorts of things that are wonderful to use to baste, stuff, marinate in and so on. Including such wonderful things as beer. Beer is a fine ingredient for some hot chicken recipes.

Today I was looking around Chefs Catalogue, one of my favorite sites for all things cooking, and came across the Vertical Chicken Beer Roaster which grabbed my attention.

Fill the cylinder with beer, (or something else yummy like a fruit juice, or use your imagination) and put the chicken over it and roast.

Maybe put some great spices on the cylinder and the outside of the chicken if you'd like to spice it up a little. Read more

Do fragrances make a good gift for a man?

You love nice fragrances, perfumes are wonderful things. And he seems to like it on you too. But would he like it if you gave one to him for a gift?

Good question, and one with many different answers I suppose, depending on the man.

However I do think it's true that many men do like perfumes to wear, both for themselves to wear and for their women.

I should state my own interest here. I have a perfume that I wear from time to time, and I quite enjoy it. It's only from time to time, I choose the occasion, it's not something I do every day. My wife likes the fragrance and so do I.

It's an entirely individual thing, not all men would wear a perfume, many wouldn't even consider it, no matter how much they liked the fragrance, if they admitted to it. Read more

The classic bomber jacket of the second world war is an icon amongst mens clothing. Now you can dress him in one.

The bomber jacket is one of the most well known of mens jackets. The classic A2 bomber jacket was first issued to US pilots in 1931 and was used right throughout the second world war. It was so popular that it was reissued to pilots again by the air force in 1987.

Now you can dress him in a classic A2 bomber jacket made by the exact same manufacturer that makes them for pilots now. It looks great and it's a fine birthday gift idea for a man who loves his tradition. Or perhaps a Christmas gift for a cold Christmas. He'll love it.

A shell of French lambskin and a lining with 2 American flags embroidered on and the message "The nation salutes you" just like the real pilots.

It looks hot and it's a classic.

Or, if the weather is too hot where you live and a leather jacket really isn't practical because it's going to be too hot to wear, how about a classic reproduction of the bomber jacket in cotton? A lightweight bomber jacket.

During the war pilots in the Pacific theatre of operations asked local tailors to create a jacket that was a copy of the classic bomber jacket but was more suitable to hotter conditions. These tailors created the classic cotton copy of the bomber jacket and this is it. Read more