Yes, there are just four days left to find that perfect gift. But, never fear: Home&Garden is here once more with fabulous finds for the home — and all of them can be picked up in a flash.
The feng shui way
Pick a card, any card. It’s hard to go wrong when selecting one from “The Feng Shui Deck” by Olivia H. Miller and Sheryll Hirschberger. This card deck, from Chronicle Books, gives you 50 ways to create a healthy and harmonious home using the principles of feng shui, a branch of the Chinese system of knowledge known as Taoism. The cards come in an attractive green and red box with the Chinese calligraphy for “potential” on it. The cards deal with the power of connectedness, balancing rest and activity, enhancing energy, welcoming life’s energy, predictable movement, building blocks of matter, predictable patterns, meaningful coincidences and optimum placement. An easy-to-understand learning and reference tool, the cards, illustrated by Jianwei Fong, are designed for feng shui newcomers as well as practitioners.They’re $14.95 at gift shops and bookstores. For more information, call 800-722-6657 or visit www.chroniclebooks.com.
— Pamela Sherrod
Held in suspense
The 3-D Collectibles Frame is an innovative way to protect and display your precious collectibles. The dark brown frame holds two sheets of flexible silicone. Insert your treasure between them and the object becomes “suspended” within the frame. Perfect for baby shoes, golf balls, baseballs and other small items less than 6 inches in diameter — though not suitable for items with sharp edges. It’s $39.95 at The Container Store locations; or order online (Item No. 10021545) at www.containerstore.com or by calling 800-733-3532.
–Mary Daniels
The ultimate gardener’s gift
“If it isn’t in this book, it probably won’t grow here” is the claim Houghton Mifflin makes of its new “Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Garden Plants,” edited by Frances Tenenbaum (447 pages, $45). Unlike other garden encyclopedias that try to span the world, this one is focused on plants that will grow in North American gardens. For each genus, you’ll find a color photo, a list of useful species — more than 1,000 in all — and growing information . The content comes from Houghton Mifflin’s “Taylor’s Guides” books, which have been dispensing authoritative garden advice since 1986, and which trace their ancestry to botanist Norman Taylor’s 1936 “Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Gardening.” For an even more substantial gift, consider the new “Flora,” a two-volume, 14-pound garden plant encyclopedia from Timber Press (1,584 pages, $100) that covers more than 20,000 plants worldwide with 12,000 photos. It also comes with an interactive CD-ROM that allows you to search for plants by hardiness zone. Available at most bookstores, either title would be a treasure for a Chicago gardener.
— Beth Botts
