Choose gifts with the right qualities

Utility + Girly = Win
Some gifts are good...and some gifts are great. Not everything you give your gal will fit into the great category, and that's okay. But if you want to reach that "great" status more often, there are two qualities you'll need to look for when in search of a gift.

The first quality
The first quality you're looking for is "utility."

Every gift is useful to some degree, but a great gift is extremely useful. It may be an item that she'll use every day, or it may only come into play on rare occasions. How often she'll use it isn't what's important. Instead, you should care about how much it'll improve her life when she does.

So ask yourself, "What can she accomplish with it?" Will she use it in some hobby of hers? Does it apply to her work? Can it help her relax?

Then consider how useful this item would be to her. Would it just barely improve her life or would it greatly enhance it? It's okay to give her something that's not tremendously useful, but the more utility it has, the better the gift it'll likely be.

The second quality
The second quality you're going for is a "girly" look or feel.

You want to find a gift that's sweet, cute, beautiful, comfortable, or personal to your gal. Basically, things that would make her smile.

I'm not talking about the kind of smile she'd crack when opening a joke gift though. I mean that little smile your gal makes for things that you wouldn't be likely to smile at yourself.

It's the smile she makes when she pulls on some fuzzy socks and curls up under a blanket on the couch. Or when she's finished dressing up and doing her makeup, and then takes her special purse in hand just before walking out the door for a date. She makes the same smile when she pulls back the paper from the side of an expensive cupcake with all sorts of decorations atop it, and closes her eyes as she leans in to take the first bite.

Now take another look at that gift you're thinking about getting her, and imagine whether or not it would make her smile in that same way. If so, then it's got that girly quality.

Missing qualities
When you come across something that's both useful and girly, there's a good chance you've got a winning gift on your hands.

So what if you've got an item that's really strong in one of these qualities, but not the other...could it still make for a "good" gift? Sure it could, but there are steps you can take to turn it into a "great" gift.

Examples
A plain looking, gray colored, shatter proof water bottle has utility, because she can drink from it and it won't crack when she drops it...but it's not that girly. If your gal needs a water bottle, then this would be a good gift. It just won't knock her socks off.

To turn this into a great gift, look around for a different version. Find a bottle covered in jewels, painted in rainbows, designed to fit in a purse, pastel colored, or engraved with her name...any girly thing that she'll appreciate. Now this water bottle checks each box, as it'll both improve her life and make her smile each time she picks it up.

How about flowers? Flowers are 100% girly, and you should be giving them to your gal often, but they have no utility to speak of. They're a nice decoration and they're meaningful, but that's not exactly useful.

So how can you kick those flowers up a notch? Well, if she's into art projects, include a "flower press kit" so she can flatten, dry out, and save some of them for a scrapbook or whatever else she wants. Or you could include a vase, which is useful because it can hold any other bouquets that you give her in the future.

The takeaway here is that you can improve on any gift that's lacking in one quality or another by doing one of two things. You can (1) keep searching for a better version, like the fancy water bottle or (2) add in a small "extra" gift that ranks high in the other quality, like the vase.

Small extras, big quality
If you've got the scratch to give your gal an overly expensive gift, like a brand new car for her birthday, good for you. A car has all kinds of utility...but unless it's got a pink paint job, it's not that girly.

I'm not saying that she's going to be disappointed with that new car. I'm sure she'll love it. Just understand that a car is essentially a tool, and than means it can be improved by "girlying" it up, regardless of how good a gift it already is.

I can hear you thinking, "Well who is going to care about the girly factor when they're getting a new car?" I'll tell you who will care...your gal.

Here's how to go about it.

*  Get her a vanity license plate with a girly looking frame.

*  Or install a Hello Kitty head on the shifter.

*  Or maybe you can screw on some cute valve stem caps.

*  Or put that lovely water bottle we talked about in one of the cup holders and a small bouquet of flowers in the other.

In other words, do something that will make the gift especially memorable. When she thinks back on this gift 20 years from now, you don't want her to remember, "He gave me a car." You want her to remember, "He gave me that car with the (frame, shifter, caps, bottle, flowers). That was so sweet."

This small change stuff may seem insignificant to you and me, but our perception isn''t what's important. How your gal feels about these details is all that matters

Last thought
"Utility" is important because it adds substance to her gift...and "girly" touches are equally important because they inject the right feelings into it.

Not every gift needs to have both of these qualities of course, but definitely keep them in mind when you're trying to figure out what to get your gal. The more you're able to intertwine these two qualities, the more your gal will enjoy her gifts.