best friend gifts

Write your treasured memories or important dates and secure everything in a gorgeous leather cover crafted by Wendy Oviedo from Costa Rica. After printing a nature-inspired pattern on this superb accessory, the artisan adds a convenient journal with lined pages and an elastic cord for a safe closure.

Crafted by members of the Lopez Garcia Family of Guatemala, these quitapenas dolls make a wonderful gift for friends or family that tells the recipient you care about their well-being and wish them the best. Quitapenas means "to remove worries" in Spanish; artisan Aura Lopez explains the Mayan worry doll tradition. "My grandparents said that the way to use them was to take the doll out of the bag or wooden box and tell it your problems and fears," she states. "Then, you place the doll under your pillow and, the next day, your problem becomes smaller or can be resolved." The set consists of two pairs of male and female worry dolls joined together by a red heart. Handmade, the dolls are dressed in vividly-colored traditional Guatemalan attire and arrive in a pouch of handwoven cotton fabric.

Crafted by members of the Lopez Garcia Family of Guatemala, this set of six quitapenas dolls makes a wonderful gift for friends or family that tells the recipient you care about their well-being and wish them the best. Quitapenas means "to remove worries" in Spanish; artisan Aura Lopez explains the Mayan worry doll tradition. "My grandparents said that the way to use them was to take the doll out of the bag or wooden box and tell it your problems and fears," she states. "Then, you place the doll under your pillow and, the next day, your problem becomes smaller or can be resolved." The set consists of three male and three female worry dolls each clasping a red heart to his or her chest and comes with a pouch made from loom-woven cotton. Handmade using tule wood, polyurethane, nylon stockings, kraft paper, and 100% cotton fabric, the dolls are dressed in vividly-colored traditional Guatemalan attire.

Bali's Komang Sulaksana presents a colorful quartet of handcrafted journals that feature a wealth of natural materials. Each journal contains 50 blank pages of rice straw paper, and a cover made from banana bark fiber. The 4 petite journals are bound with agel grass cords and trimmed with a natural cinnamon stick.

A sapphire peacock of golden wings and an emerald and sapphire tail is the proud national bird of India. It graces the cover of this handcrafted journal, whose back cover replicates an ancient postcard with a court stamp paper and immigration stamp. The screen printed images are bordered by olive green cotton, including the ribbon. From Asha Prabha, the journal features 48 pages of blank handmade paper.