We went to the funniest housewarming party last weekend!  A lovely couple we know have rented a gorgeous Victorian house for two years while they save up to buy somewhere in London; so they decided to have a barbecue on one of the few days that the sun shone.  We gave them personalised coffee and tea tins as their housewarming gift – which they loved! 

A group of their friends had clubbed together and turned up with tins of paint and brushes, expecting the house to need a lick of colourful paint – which is didn’t!  It’s beautifully decorated already.  So they decided to paint the garden!! It was totally bizarre – everyone joined in graffiti-ing the grass.  It was such fun. 

Decorating seemed a nice idea for a housewarming gift, but always better to have the prior agreement of whoever lives there.  (We could have supplied some of our popular personalised wallpaper if they’d wanted to revamp the property!) On the whole, they were happy with the coffee tins and a glossy personalised clock which they promptly hung on the kitchen wall!  Tweet us your funniest gifts – we’ll share!

As David Beckham retires from a glittering career, we’re thinking it would be nice to send him a retirement gift.  After all, the end of an illustrious 20 year career should be marked with something special, don’t you agree?

Bearing in mind that most retirees are somewhat older than Mr Beckham, we offer a wide selection of age appropriate gifts, but our range would surely make David smile.  Perhaps an engraved cut glass bottle stopper or a floating pen set.  The natural choice would be a selection of personalised photoblocks, so he can display pics of his winning shots all around his lovely home.

And for Sir Alex Ferguson, how about an engraved glasses case – elegant, personal and useful?  Isn’t it great when you can chat about football and it counts as working?!!

GCSE exams are underway and all over the country we can hear the rustle of students frantically turning pages in a last ditch attempt to cram it all in.  We’ve had a run on personalised sweets being sent as good luck gifts – so if you’ve walked past a school and heard chomping, that’s the reason!!

Engraved Keyrings have been popular this year too.  Well, they’re cute for any occasion, and more practical than a lucky gonk!  One customer told us she always sends keyrings because they’re easy to post… so we reminded her we can deliver direct to any address in the UK, next day if you order by 2pm!!

What’s been your luckiest gift?  From teddies to jewellery to lucky pants – tell us your favourites.  Tweet your replies to @ihugtj and we’ll retweet!