Arts
You don’t have to be stuck for gift ideas anymore
Racking your brains to find the perfect gift? We’ve all been through that! As someone who takes the tradition of gift giving very seriously, Dinushka Fernando thought of creating thematic and personalised gift boxes which can help people find the perfect gift while also supporting local businesses.
The gift boxes did not come from a place of abundant creativity, we learn. “I couldn’t even draw a straight line,” laughs Dinushka, confessing she was never artistically inclined, and the occasional poems she wrote while at Ladies’ College were one of her few creative pursuits. Buts she has a passion for helping people – a passion instilled in her by her parents and grandparents and one which saw her join a non-governmental organisation after school and organise a concert to raise funds for a friend’s sister who had leukemia.
“I know how to get things done,” she says, and this has been proved without doubt with her gift boxes that evolved from a previous venture– ‘Ethnicity’– through which she imported items from India when she and her husband moved there. Once she returned to Sri Lanka and her son was born, Dinushka felt that creating gift boxes would be the perfect way to pass the spare time she had while also promoting the many wide and varied items her friends made – from pickled olives to jewellery and many more. She was especially motivated when a friend of hers began making body scrubs. “After gifting them to everyone I knew, I was still looking for other ways to promote them,” she explains.
The box can be customised to suit the tastes of the person it’s for and aims to help people find something meaningful and personalised without over spending. Popular boxes include the Harry Potter (jewellery or cufflinks, a magnet, cookie and wooden bookmark etc. ), the ‘Auntie box’ (date and tamarind chutney, honey flavoured cookie bar and two crocheted coasters etc.).
“If you gift a voucher the receiver would know exactly how much you have spent on them – the same is true of clothes and other items when you need to exchange them – then there’s the hassle of actually buying or returning these things. I feel these boxes solve all of these problems,” she explains.
The boxes are 100% Sri Lankan, and usually contain something bought from a charity as well as an item which is biodegradable. Dinushka adds leaflets of the products she puts in, thus encouraging people to contact her suppliers directly as a way of promoting their businesses.
Each box costs between Rs. 1200 and 4000 and comes with a magnet of inspirational quotes (magnets are also sold individually at Rs. 125).
Dinushka feels it is important that her boxes are useful for the people who buy them and also those who supply them; so she strives to make her business as ethical as possible. She also wants people to feel they have got their money’s worth – a box stuffed with useful items which elicit joy. “Many of the people who buy my boxes are women or they buy them for women and I think it’s important for women who work so hard during the month to have one little thing which is just for them so that they feel valued and cherished,” she says. Her hope is that while being useful, each box brings a little bit of sunshine and magic into the lives of those who open it.
Dinushka can be contacted through Instagram on http://www.instagram.org/hashtag/boxesbyethnicity, facebook on https://m.facebook.com/Boxes-by-Ethnicity-1537475113028902/ and Whatsapp on +94724573563.
The boxes can be picked up or delivered.
