A Best Man Gift for Car Guys

Some orders are… a bit more interesting than others. Or at least different than the others.

This was both an interesting and different one.

What could be inside?

Ryan (thatmintyfreshmiata on instagram) contacted me about doing a Best Man Gift for Scotty, a mutual friend. Ryan is getting married shortly, and wanted to start getting things nailed down. That meant a best man. And that meant a GIFT!

Scotty runs Spinnywoosh, a one man Miata shop (just like my shop!), and is a fantastic guy. When Ryan asked me to send him something random with a note asking to be his best man, my imagination kinda went into overdrive. Something better than “random” was required for this order.

Custom Best Man horn button

My mind went straight to a horn button. It seemed like one of the better choices as a Best Man Gift, what with it being actually useful, mostly universal, and really fun to make. I decided to do a remix of the classic Nardi logo with SW in the center instead of ND (SW for Spinnywoosh) and BEST MAN instead of Nardi Torino. Designing this took barely 30 minutes.

Then there was the problem of how to ship it and present it. I googled.

SO many wood boxes.

Google was not shy with results on Best Man Gifts. There was certainly an aesthetic that most of the gifts went by. A wood box, a note in the box top, and a gift displayed inside.

No problem. I can do that.

The Gift Box

A quick trip to the local craft store got me a couple sizes of wood box, some pretty dried Spanish moss, and some pretty paper. I hit the wood box with some cherry stain after sanding down the rough spots, then I threw it in my gauge printer and got the box top looking pretty.

Why not just laser etch the wood? The black text I printed is coated in gloss clear. I couldn’t get a good photo of the effect, but it looks absolutely incredible. Far more luxurious and up-scale than simple laser etching. I could have printed millions of colors instead of just black and grey, but it seemed like black was a bit more classy.

Classy is my middle name. Rev Classy Limiter… or something.

The full presentation.

Then I carefully cut the fancy silver crinkle paper to fit the box inside and ran that through the gauge printer. It shimmers in a lovely contrast to the dried moss pillow which holds the horn button.

It sounds pretty straightforward but I put around eight hours of off-and-on work into this order. And it was FUN work! Maybe a bit aggravating at times (I tried to do a spray-foam pillow for the button… it did not turn out.) but so much fun. I’m hoping I get to do a few more of these Best Man Gifts in the future.

And I’m very happy to report that Scotty accepted the job and will be Ryan’s best man. I mean, how could he say no?

Thanks for letting me contribute to your special day Ryan!

If anyone out there needs a Best Man Gift, just reach out and I’ll do my best.