Tip Of The Day - Order Your Personalised Gifts Now

Yes I know Christmas is still several weeks away, but if you're planning on ordering something personal, now is the time to do it. Since these gifts are created specially for you, they aren't held in stock, and so are less readily available.

But the extra faff of ordering is worth it, especially for children. They love the specialness of having something with their very own name. And with so many children having unusual names these days, this can be a rare treat.

Here on ParentDish, we've already featured a selection of personalised books for children, and create-your-own photobooks, which are a great gift for grandparents.

Here are some of the other gifts with the personalised touch that are still available for Christmas '09:

• Fingerprint Jewellery make absolutely gorgeous pieces of jewellery from children's fingerprints and drawings. This would be a lovely gift for a relative or for yourself. I especially like the necklaces recreated from children's drawings. Simply send in your child's drawing and they'll reproduce it in silver.

  This would be a lovely way to commemorate a new sibling or a special birthday. They also do cufflinks printed with a miniature version of your child's hand prints - what a really sweet gift for dad. But be very quick - last orders for this site is 20th November.

• Letterbox also have a great selection of personalised stuff for children. My kids both have their own boxes of pencils from here with their names on which they love. The company warns that delivery of personalised items can take up to 28 days, so get straight on it if you want something like this.
• For someone who likes jigsaws and maps, Above and Beyond can create a jigsaw based on any postcode in the UK. I've ordered one of these for Grandad. They take 3 to 5 days to produce, so should still arrive in plenty of time for Christmas (Crikey I hope so, otherwise I'm in trouble)
• Another source of
  unusual personalised gifts is the Original Gift Company. One of their top sellers is this adorable Steiff Voyager teddy bear, which comes with a cute little suitcase to travel in and a personalised label for your child which says "I Belong to..." Maybe a special keepsake for baby's first Christmas? The company also makes personalised wine labels and chocolate lollipops printed with your child's name - a good alternative party bag if you're hosting a children's Christmas party.