Fort Myers Farmers Market Features Jewelry Made From Nuts

If you're looking for Last minute stocking suffers or future gifts, outdoor markets in Southwest Florida are a treasure trove. I am so far behind. However, I managed to wrap up gifts for a couple of people on my list after visiting a tent at the Lakes Park Famers Market this week.  I found this vibrant jewelry made from nuts of all things. It's this week's Fabulous Find. Check it out.

The nut is called Tagua. However, it is not your average nut. Tagua comes from South America. It is referred to as Vegetable Ivory. It's found in a type of palm tree and is also known as corozo. It is quite a process to make the jewelry.  The nuts are cut and polished. Next, they are dyed to achieve vibrant colors. Finally, they are air dried before being assembled into one of a kind pieces of jewelry and accessories.

Steffeandre Jewelry has all kinds of tagua jewelry. It is more than pretty. The jewelry provides employment to indigenous people. In addition, it is said to contribute to preservation efforts of the rainforest. It is affordable too. Check this out.

Good luck wrapping up your shopping. Find Steffeandre at a variety of local markets.

Giving Florida Lottery scratch offs as Christmas gifts is probably the most Florida thing you can do at family get togethers. Do they do this in other states, too? We always have them in Fort Myers. Here's what I do.

You ever been at a get together and you get an unexpected gift from a relative? Like, now we're getting gifts for cousins? I'm not ready for this. So I always keep a few extra gifts in reserve. A holiday card with some scratch off tickets in it. Your second cousin surprises you with some unexpected chocolates? Boom. I got you this. A nice card and some lottery tickets. Who doesn't love that? And if you get through all the holiday parties with some cards left over, you scratch the tickets off yourself. Hey - someone in Daytona just won a million last week. On a $5 ticket.

So, I was in Ohio last week and at the gas station they had these 'jumbo' $10  scratch offs. They looked fun (and big!), and they were Christmas themed, so I picked some up for some family members. You know what? All duds. When you give out lottery tickets as gifts you want them to win. So with the help of the Florida Lottery website, I'm doing the research for you.

Before we get started, let me introduce you to my 10% rule. If you get a scratch off ticket as a gift, and win big, giving 10% back to the person who bought the ticket is a good move. Pre-tax. This rule applies to anything over $1,000. This is my personal rule, so feel free to modify it to fit you, but if you win a million dollars on a scratch off, you can certainly gift $100,000 back to the person who bought it.  Now, let's get to the 3 Florida Lottery scratch off tickets that I feel will make the best Christmas gifts this season. Good luck everyone!

If you haven't seen this game before, it is new. It just came out 2 weeks ago. This $10 ticket has 3 games on it, so there's more ways to win - and the recipient of this gift will be spending some time on this ticket to see if they won. It's a thinking game. Overall odds of winning something are 1-in-3.37. The game has 8 grand prize 2 million dollar winning tickets, and none of those 8 have been redeemed yet.

This is an odd little ticket with a $3 price, and like the Cashword, it'll keep them occupied for awhile. Just like Bingo, you reveal the number, and see if you have it on your card. The overall odds of winning are 1-in-4.21 with a top prize of $150,000 and a lot of different prizes. If you have a relative that likes playing Bingo, this is an easy gift.

If you'd rather keep your ticket gifts simple, this one is for you. It's more of a traditional "here's your winning numbers, scratch off the rest to see if they match", with just a couple of extra twists. The $2 price tag means you can keep a lot on hand to take care of anyone extra who may show up to the party. The best part? They made 6 of the $50,000 winning tickets and all of them are still out there. So maybe your uncle will win big and buy a jet ski that he'll let you borrow. It could happen.

I picked these 3 because they seemed to be the most unique - and they had all of their grand prize winning tickets still available. You might have better luck with some of the others, but these are the three that I'm going to try. Will cousin Mitch be at the party this year? I don't know, but I'll be ready. Good luck to all, and Merry Christmas everyone!