I don’t know what to say. These unsual baby gifts were forward to me by a reader in Singapore…

Umbilical cord is the connection between mum and baby. Umbilical Cord Stamp is also called “Wealth Stamp”! To keep the umbilical cord into a crystal which is engraved with baby’s name, photo and birthday can bring baby good wealth and health

* Hairs can be changed to Umbilical Cord, or put both together. The price is from $68 to $288.

Stuck for a baby name? Consider a hurricane name. I think “Gaston” would look very exotic on one of our personalised baby gifts! The World Meteorological Organization devises the list 6 years in advance, and as well as the names going alphabetically, the names on the list  alternate between a male and female moniker. The names for 2010 are: 

• Bonnie
• Colin
• Danielle
• Earl
• Fiona
• Gaston
• Hermine
• Igor
• Julia
• Karl
• Lisa
• Matthew
• Nicole
• Otto
• Paula
• Richard
• Shary
• Tomas
• Virginie
• Walter

UK Labour MP Frank Field has organised an acre of rainforest to be sponsored in the name of the the Prime Minister’s newborn, Florence Rose Endellion Cameron. Mr Cameron has promised to deliver the UK’s greenest government - so a baby gift with green creditials is an appropriate move!

Similarly cool virtual baby gifts can be purchased at http://www.coolearth.org/.

Oh no! Marianne and I are back to sharing a desk! It has been a while… ahhh the glamourous life of a tradefair roadie.

Just like a baby gift… I have discovered a plethora of “not what it seems” food art in the UK. Today, I present fish under water, aux pommes.

In keeping with the “not what they seem” theme of our baby gifts, I present you with stonehenge, in butter.

UK PM David Cameron with his new baby, Florence

Here we are in the UK for two  gift tradeshows over the next two weeks, and the first pictures of the UK Prime Minister with his week-old baby Florence have been realeased. This morning I read with interest that David and Samantha Cameron are following a UK trend in naming their child after a holiday destination.

Visits abroad by UK residents may have fallen at the fastest rate on record since the 1970s but according to baby name researcher Bounty.com, it seems parents are increasingly influenced by holiday destinations when naming their children – with over 18,000 parents choosing to call their babies after places such as Bali, Capri and Cuba over the past 10 years.

 Florence, Rio and Paris are the most favoured holiday themed names chosen by parents, closely followed by India, Sydney and Lucia. The New York Borough of Brooklyn, not the most exotic location for a trip away, also makes the top ten with over a thousand parents taking the lead of the Beckhams when naming their children.

And it’s not just holidays abroad that are inspiring parents with a total of 1,255 Devons born over the past 10 years – not to mention 6 Brightons and 4 Dublins!

We leave for the UK tommorow, so I thought I would brush up on the latest UK gift news. 

I read with interest that a UK gift company, Me to You, conducted a poll of 3,000 people, and concluded: “While the Great British public might feel uncomfortable saying thank you these days, they do like to show their gratitude in other ways.  The study found “cheers” ‘lovely’, ‘nice one’, ‘much appreciated’, ‘you star’, and ‘all right’ are also used regularly in lieu of ‘thank you’. Even foreign words such as ‘merci’, ‘dance’ and ‘gracias’ have become more popular than the traditional expression of thanks. I am not sure about ‘Ace’…

The study also found that four in ten people no longer send thank you letters if they receive gifts through the post, and the same percentage would not make their children send a thank you either.

 TOP 20 WAYS TO SAY THANK YOU:

1. Cheers

2. Ta

3. That’s great

4. Cool

5. OK

6. Brilliant

7. Lovely

8. Nice one

9. Much appreciated

10. You star 11. All right

12. Fab

13. Awesome

14. Wicked

15. Merci

16. Danke

17. Gracias

18. Super

19. Ace

20. Thank you

We have introduced personalised freckle letters to our gift range. These 40gram belgian chocolate beauties can be purchased individually, or to spell a word. An ideal baby gift add-on for an anagram nut.

Click here for baby gift info.