Four sites I'm shopping this holiday season

I love giving gifts for Christmas. It's one of the best parts of the holiday season. I do not, however, love Christmas shopping in the traditional sense of the word. Black Friday lines and midnight hours are for the night owls. I tend to fall asleep at 8 p.m., on a good night.

Which is why I love shopping online. I peruse the retail online staples, like Amazon and Target, but have also found some pretty cool sites that give my gifts more creativity. Here are four of the sites I'll be shopping this holiday season.

Note: I've received no compensation; I just really like these sites.

Pretty Colleen: The tagline of this Etsy shop is "make a beautiful statement" and the hand-crafted jewelry lives up to the motto. Shop one-of-a-kind necklaces, shoe clips, little girls' headbands and other items that site owner and craft extraordinaire Maura makes on a whim. Maura combines her South Florida roots with her now-cosmopolitan location in Chicago and finds inspiration in old clothing, fabric scraps and costume jewelry pieces. I bought a few pieces from the Pretty Colleen shop to give away to readers of the blog. To win this statement necklace, comment at the end of this post. Start your comment with "All I want this holiday season is..." I've put an example. I will choose a random winner on Black Friday, so check back that day to see if it's you! You can also leave your Twitter name in the comment and I'll contact you that way.




UNICEF: If you are sending out holiday cards, or even just stocking up on your year-round card supply, buy them from UNICEF. All of the proceeds from the $10 - $20 boxes of cards go to help fight childhood hunger and disease worldwide. Want an idea of the impact your purchase will make? Just one box provides 29 measles vaccines, or 85 children with clean water. There are some really cute designs and the people who receive your cards will know you took a stand in improving the health of children worldwide. Cute cards. Helping kids. Buy online? No brainer. UNICEF cards it is.

Giftly: If you want to support local businesses, check out the nifty concept of Giftly.com. Giftly provides "gift certificates" for any business with a listing in Yelp. As the gift giver, you pick the amount that you want to give and the receiver gets a code through email or Facebook. When the receiver "checks in" electronically at the business, Giftly reimburses the person through credit card or Paypal for the amount that you gifted. Intrigued? Read more on Giftly's FAQs.

Photo holiday card from Shutterfly

Shutterfly: Of all the photo places in cyber space, I <3 Shutterfly the mostest. I'm able to upload photos year round and then turn said photos into gifts come Christmastime. The new customizable photo book option is especially appreciated by those of us in the non-scrap booking community (of which I am the mayor). I can give a gift that looks more professional than using my glue stick and construction paper and get a good deal doing it. This shopping season Shutterfly is offering deals like free shipping and 20% off photobooks.