turning 9...going on 13...auntie needs gift ideas!

[tzs]

my neice is turning 9 but is a total "teenager." i'm already late on a birthday gift and have no ideas this year. she has 4 bros and sisters and so they already have a ton of crap toys and i usually try to get them something more "quality" but at this age and maturity level i'm at a loss.
i used to get her crafty stuff but to be honest, she's bigtime attitude lately and would be way too-cool-for-school for anything like this.
last year i took her and a friend to get manicures and "coffee" thinking that some quality alone time would be something she could really use but i'm not really too big on hanging out with her these days.
gosh, what else...she is going to sleepaway camp for the first time this year so something related might work but i have no ideas other than a cute sleeping bag or suitcase.
we're also orthodox-ly jewish so they don't really listen to popular music (although they do have a wii video game thing) and i couldn't get her anything "scandelous" like...a cheerleading outfit or "sweet valley high" novel or something like that.

help!!!! any suggestions????

[Linda on the move]

Gift card for clothes
bath products (Body Shop kind of stuff)
jewerly

[aussiemum]

A diary.

A manicure set (polish, clippers, buffers, etc. that are picked by your auntie).

Gift voucher for clothes.

A digital photo album/frame/

[mtiger]

A journal for camp (or otherwise). A nice totebag, where she can put all sorts of things - books, change of clothes she might need for camp (swimsuit & towel?). A gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

[karne]

I know that you said she's not crafty right now, but I have to say dd and her friends love the Klutz books--very specifically the "cootie catcher" book, and anything to do with origami. Yesterday we saw the cutest Klutz origami fashion book.

If she's into sleepoevers I reccomend this (hope the link works)! They have a slumber party box of questions that my dd and her friends LOVE.

www.theboxgirls.com

[iamme]

If she's into " all that" and acts like she's "all that".....(PLEASE, I'm joking!!)

I *highly* recommend the Klutz kit that is Fashion Design!! She can literally design, cut and assemble hundreds of fashion wear!! Between the ages of 10-12, my dd had "designed" enough fashions to cover her bedroom door-nio space showing!

Otherwise:
Giftcards to:
Claires
Justice
Local coffee/juice shop
Bookstore
itunes
Icecream shoppe(can a girl have too much?? NO!!)

Or-
Assemble "kits" for-
Cooking/baking
Manicures/pedicures(Walgreens carries a brand of nail polish that is called Scandulous-or something like that-it is CHEAP in price, and high in quality and choice!)
Skin care
Outside fun(skin safety, active play)
Something special for her room that can(or not!) double as a keepsake.
Her own scrapbook-materials to get started-Michaels often has a great deal on all-in-one starter kits.

Good luck and have fun!!

[bestjob]

Money.

Always the right size, always the right colour.

But, here's the catch. You have to customize it.

My personal favourite is to freeze much coinage in a giant block of ice and give it to the kids as "cold hard cash".

Alternatively, you have to be rigorous about getting a crisp bill from the bank (or a gift card from a retailer) and enclosing it in a card with either a handwritten note or Hallmark's sappiest poem... which you MUST annotate with even sappier comments.

The real deal is to make sure that even if you give cash or gift cards, the kid knows you are thinking of her as an individual who means something special to you.

My nieces were hard to impress when they were young and I didn't play the game of buying them, but I did keep up with some modest gifts that helped them through. They're now 23 and 25 yo, and their more recent emails indicate that I'm a pretty cool aunt.

Looking back on my own aunts, even getting a card each year would have been nice.