When stocking up to stuff your stockings this holiday season, you don’t need to look farther than your own neighborhood. Berthoud is packed with crafters, creatives, artists and unique presents.

Looking for holiday inspiration? Shop local and support your community, while giving one-of-a-kind, thoughtful gifts that you can’t just find with any ol’ Amazon click. Best of all, these gifts are full of heart.

A Peppermint and Eucalyptus Candle.

Our Back Porch Candle Company hand-pours its high-quality candles in Berthoud, all made with natural ingredients like soy wax and essential oils. Soy wax is better for the environment than paraffin wax, and it also supports American soy farmers. Plus, it’s non-toxic, non-carcinogenic and is pesticide- and herbicide-free. The candles also contain 100 percent cotton wicks. That means no heavy metal or zinc.

Soy wax also burns cooler, which means slower; soy candles burn up to 50 percent longer than a mass-produced paraffin-wax candle from the grocery store.

Our Back Porch Candle Company features a different seasonal scent each month, but we love the soothing winter scent of the peppermint-eucalyptus candle. Or Rocky Mountain Cabin (accented by pine, bayberry and mint) will make your home smell like a getaway in the mountains.

A Miniature Totem.

Berthoud artist Charlotte Zink and her husband, Ben, have been making art in Berthoud for two decades. Together, they form Zink Metal Art, which is well known for its sculptures and paintings (if you’re at A&W, you can see the sculptures outside the Zinks’ studio diagonally across the street). But Zink Metal Art also makes smaller pieces starting as low as $20, as well as hand-crafted cards that make a personal touch to a holiday gift.

Zink’s miniature totems ($35-$60) would transform an ordinary stocking into the holiday spotlight. Also check out Zink’s unique jewelry. 

CBD Chocolate.

Dream Farms CBD Colorado is a local distributor of Oregon CBD products, including chocolate bars made with CBD. Not Your Mama’s Chocolate Bar is made with 250 mg of CBD (not a bad gift for a mama who tends to get stressed out around the holidays). For some more unique gift ideas, Dream Farms sells a CBD lip gloss, CBD honey sticks, CBD beard oil and even CBD shampoo and conditioner. Top it off with a fizzy CBD bath bomb and make it the most chill Christmas ever.

A Custom Tumbler.

Michelle Armstrong runs a small, home-based business called Three Sixty Custom Creations, which makes custom tumblers and other handmade crafts (car air fresheners, Christmas ornaments). She can design a tumbler in all kinds of colors, with personal photos, words, sparkles, just about any print. Make it funny, inspirational, sentimental, you name it, but always personal. This is a highly practical gift that can pack big personality.

A Custom Cornhole Game.

OK, this one’s too big to fit in a stocking. But you can tease the bigger gift by packing the stocking with cornhole bags. NoCo Custom Cornhole specializes in building custom cornhole sets. Decorate it with your favorite team, business, family name, name of your favorite town (ahem, ahem), whatever you want your game to look like. Select different colored bags and different wood finishes to make it one-of-a-kind.

A Natural, Handmade Moon Bar.

Pluie Soap makes natural, homemade soaps of all different kinds, including the Moon Bar: a healthy coconut shampoo bar that you can use all over. Pluie makes many other kinds of silky soaps, too, made with natural ingredients and essential oils. Choose between lavender, creamy apricot, tangerine and more. A bath bomb, arnica salve, natural deodorant and a massage bar are other offerings.
A particularly relevant product this winter (especially in health-conscious 2020) is a soothing shower disk for cold and sinus. Just put it in the shower with you and let the water dissolve it, to release peppermint, eucalyptus and lavender and turn your shower into a healthy spa experience.

Another local soap shop is Lilith Soaps. This small, woman-owned, home-based business handcrafts small-batch, cold-pressed soap made with pure ingredients.

Custom Holiday Cards.

Support a local crafter and wish your loved ones well when you shop at Lyrical Cards by Donna. In addition to selling stamps and kits for you to make your own cards (and holding small, private classes to teach you), she makes original holiday cards by hand. This year, some of the proceeds from her cards will benefit hospitalized veterans at the Rocky Mountain Regional Hospital. Cards start at $3.50 each, and the price goes down per card the more you buy.