Holiday Geek Giving Guide of 2012
written by Lillian Wong (@lillyums)
It’s December! Time to start thinking about getting some gifts this holiday season for your geeky friends and family if you haven’t done so already. Fear not, I've got a multitude of gift giving ideas for your fellow geek friends and family! With a bunch ton of our population falling into geek culture, they are bound to love SOMETHING from this post! Apparel, toys, jewelry, gadgets – you name it. We have listed several of Lifted Geek’s personal favorite online shops that you could start shopping at.
Before I continue, I need to point out the ultimate
universal geek shop for everything and anything geek: ThinkGeek. Gadget, toys, electronics, apparel, jewelry,
office, edibles… seriously you will find something here. My current top 5 includes the 8bit stocking :)
Apparel: I love clothes. Though I think sometimes it's a little hard to get someone clothes because they just might not like it.. but if you know someone was saying "Man, I wish I had a Nintendo skirt to wear with my 1up t-shirt!" then this is the place to go!
WeLoveFine has a variety of t-shirt designs from the most popular movies and TV shows including My Little Pony, Star Wars, DC Comics, Hello Kitty, Adventure Time, t-shirts with 8 bit designs, and much more. They’ve got geeky baby clothes as well! I think a larger number of MLP fans come to this site for the merchandise - so if your friend is an MLP fanatic they may appreciate their pretty awesome shirts and prints.
SuperHeroStuff is by far the largest collection of comic character themed t-shirts I have ever seen. Every super hero character in every article of clothing you can think of. It is also the place to buy last minute Halloween “costumes”- but that’s beside the point. Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman – t-shirts designed to look like the body of your geeky friend’s favorite super hero will make them THE super hero of the holidays. Right.
Go Follow Rabbits is an Etsy designer of all awesome custom geeky skirts EVER! Examples such as an R2D2 skirt, Doctor Who skirt, Super Mario, Captain America... Come on, skirts are girly and girls love skirts :) I'm loving this Nintendo skirt.
Jewelry: This might be the section for you if you are looking for a little geeky something for your girlfriend or female friends. Now jewelry isn't all just for girls! There are things for dudes too, like geeky cuff links - I'm seeing these things pop up all over the place! ThinkGeek also has a good selection of jewelry for both men and women, so I would check that place out first for some unisex jewelry.
Hey Chickadee
has these Nyan cat phone charms and necklaces I just can’t get over – come on,
who doesn’t want a Nintendo nyan cat?
cutebricks has tons of LEGO inspired jewelry for earrings, necklaces, and rings in different shapes (like hearts). Want a little bit more bling with it? Visit UBrickit for Sworovski crystal embellishments. It really does add to one LEGO block too if you want something a little "fancier".
Toys: Satisfy someone's inner child with toys and keychains themed with their favorite character!
Funko : vinyl figurines in every character you can think of – superheroes, super villains, Disney, Star Wars…You can’t go wrong here with your geeky circle. They even have bobble head figurines! And surprise surprise, (or no surprise?) Gangnam Style PSY has been made into a Funko toy.
Rabbit Rampage has great felt keychains and phone cases to suit your geeky friend’s tastes and to save them from breaking their phone again. Playstation, XBox, Gameboy, and other console inspired phone cases and keychains will satify someone's inner geek. It’s hard to imagine that these were made of felt too – they look so great!
Bath: How else to accessorize (or use) a bathroom than with geeky soaps?! I'm not sure if I would actually end up using such cool looking soap if I ever got one... It's like those really intricate candles - too pretty to burn!
Both GEEKSOAP and Luxury Lane Soap specialize in well, geeky soap! Anything you can think of but in soap form, including a companion cube soap, Game of Thrones themed soap, Bat Man soap… These are pretty epic; don’t pretend you won’t try to use this 20 sided die soap as a real die for your D&G. And don’t pretend you won’t use the NES soap like it is a real controller. If you’ll do it – your geeky circle will too. It’s small enough too that it would be a GREAT stocking stuffer!
Kitchen: Some general random kitchen gadgets can be seen at X-Treme Geek. My personal favorites include the OCD Chef Cutting Board and the Karate Chopper. That would go so great together.. dontyouthink??? The geeky chef friend of yours will sure accessorize their kitchen with these!
Now this isn't a store (or well it is, Amazon...) - this is a single geek item I would like to recommend for the Game of Thrones fan. A
Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook.
This book has raving reviews on its recipes.
Who doesn’t want to role play a feast at Winterfell? Chelsea
Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer replicated a range of cuisines from across the
Seven Kingdoms – this will definitely be a treat for your geeky chef.
With cooking you must wear an apron! Both Darling Amy and Lover Dovers have the cutest aprons you can get for your girlfriend/mother/wife!! Darling Amy has a great variety of aprons from movies, TV shows, games, and anime including Star Wars, Naruto, DBZ, My Little Pony, Totoro, Dr. Who, and much more. Lover Dovers has the perfect Disney inspired apron, and I even got one myself in the Cinderella one :)
Adagio Teas has not disappointed me in their signature blends section – you want to know how tea is nerdy? Visit this link to see their FANDOM signature blends, where various types of loose teas are blended to reflect a character from any movie/game/TV/anime you can think of. Even the descriptions for the tea blend were written to reflect the elements of the show. They’ve got blended teas for Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Marvel, Pokemon, Game of Thrones, Twilight…ANYTHING. Your tea loving nerdy associate will definitely appreciate and enjoy a tea blend from their favorite show :)
Art: I can't forget about Art now - Society6 is a great place to search for prints and fan art designed by local artists on anything you can think of. Not only are these prints offered as framed art prints, but you can purchase them as laptop skins, cell phone cases, on apparel, pillows, and probably a few other options. Here are few artists that you could start your search in:
Melissa Smith's art style is a little bit of a splash art style, like the Dead Pool that she made in the banner above. She has created several other characters including those from The Avengers, Pokemon, and Adventure Time.
Brianna's art focuses more closely with the Disney Princesses. The one that had been most noted in many geek blogs was the print where all the Disney Princesses smiled silly for the camera, as shown above in the banner.
Other artists to check out: Fuacka (Star Wars "Rat Wars" in banner above), Blue (Supernatural, The Avengers, Sherlock Holmes) , Karen Hallion Illustrations (most noted for her Doctor Who and Disney crossover), and Arian Noveir (paint splatter for Star Wars),
Annnndd that concludes the Holiday Geek Gift Giving Guide 2012 post! There are tons of ideas but I'm pretty positive if you just click on one link you'll know which nerdy friend of yours will appreciate it. But be warned – you WILL buy for yourself too... Heck, you could use this all year round too :)
