Choosing well
Forty pounds is an awkward budget in British gift shops. It buys a great deal from small studios and almost nothing convincing from anywhere else. Here is what the money actually reaches.
The short version
Under £10: Japanese pocket notebooks, memo pads, mini note cards
£10 to £20: letterpress card sets, pressed botanicals, an A5 grid notebook
£20 to £40: hand-bound notebooks, Japanese leather
Delivery: free on UK orders over £40, otherwise £3.95 by Royal Mail Tracked 48
Why the price bracket is difficult
Around forty pounds, most gift ranges are still selling a slightly larger version of a fifteen pound object: a bigger candle, a boxed set of three things instead of one. The material has not changed and neither has the method, so the object does not read as better. It reads as more.
Small studio work behaves differently. At twenty-eight pounds you are not buying a bigger notebook, you are buying one sewn by hand. The step up is in method rather than volume, which is why it is visible from across a room.
Under ten pounds
A RO-BIKI waxed pocket notebook at six pounds is the most useful small gift in the shop. Made by Yamamoto Paper in Japan, with a waxed cover that creases and darkens in a pocket, and a faint dot grid inside. One carries Hokusai's view of Fuji from Kanaya, printed across the spine so the village ends up on the back.
RYU-RYU's mini note cards come three to a set at seven pounds fifty, with embossed illustrations that began as embroidery and envelopes in butter yellow or teal.
Ten to twenty pounds
Letterpress note cards from Le Typographe in Brussels, five to a set at twelve pounds. The type is pressed into the paper rather than printed across it, and a honeycomb pattern is printed inside each envelope where only the person opening it will find it.
Pressed botanicals from 23fleurs in south-west France, from fourteen pounds. A single ginkgo leaf gone the colour of old gold, or a hydrangea floret pressed to the thinness of paper. Gathered and pressed by hand over several weeks, stamped on the reverse, and different every time. They arrive unframed, which is part of the appeal: the recipient chooses the frame.
Twenty to forty pounds
A Japanese-bound A5 notebook from 23janvier at twenty-eight pounds, sewn with thread fanning from the top edge and printed inside the cover where only the owner sees it.
A Kanmi necklace purse at thirty-two pounds or a clasp coin purse at thirty-eight, both made in Asakusa, Tokyo, with brass frames that spring shut at a press of the thumb.
How to spend forty pounds well
Two objects usually beat one. A six pound notebook alongside a twelve pound set of cards reads as attention rather than as a fallback, and it gives the recipient something to open twice.
The other approach is to buy one thing that is plainly made by hand and let it stand alone. What does not work is spending the full forty on something that could have been made anywhere, since that is precisely the spend most people can recognise.
What is a good gift for under twenty pounds?
Small studio paper goods. A Japanese pocket notebook, a set of letterpress cards or a pressed botanical all sit under twenty pounds and none of them reads as a compromise.
Is it better to give one larger gift or two small ones?
Two small ones, in most cases, provided they are related. Pairing something useful with something to write on covers more of a person's actual life than a single object usually does.
Does Ourooh offer free UK delivery?
Free on orders over forty pounds. Below that, delivery is three pounds ninety-five by Royal Mail Tracked 48. Everything is packed in Edinburgh and posted within one to two business days.
Are the prices inside the parcel?
No. Nothing in the parcel shows a price, so it can be given straight on.