Prior to December 2015, I had little idea that shark gifts were an actual thing but when I started doing some research during that month I became very glad it was!

Shark Week – the start of the shark gifts

I like taking the casual remark, glance at an item, or mention of a thing as a finger-post to a potential present for that person. And, well, when I spent an evening at my Big Brother’s and Sister-in-Law’s house and had an evening of Shark Week on the Sy-Fy channel as entertainment that was a clear sign-post to store up and wait until Christmas (his birthday is in January and Shark Week was all the way back in June last year (time flies?!)) to put the idea into practice.

You might have escaped the unparalleled adventure that films such as Sharknado 1, 2, 3 and even 4 can bring to an evening’s viewing and if you have you really need to check these films out. Where else can you see sharks falling from the sky and attacking the human race?

Now I am also a bit of a hoarder so I do tend to stockpile gifts and wait for the right occasion to give them to the recipient (in this case my Big Bother (deliberate typo)). When I stumbled across Shark Attack, the 1999 classic TV shark film, in a Cash Converters in Birmingham for a bargainous 99p I knew that I had to buy it and create more presents around it.

Time to turn to Google!

I do like to refer to Google as one of my best friends as I am that person who will try and work out what to type in to get the result I want and even scroll past page 1,2 and maybe even 3 of the search results when I am on a mission. Luckily, and unexpectedly for me, shark gifts is actually quite a popular niche term on Google (although I may have accounted for the rise in searches in November and December 2015) and I discovered the first part of my present on Shark Gift Shop:

I knew that my Big Brother (and my adorable nephews) would love the fact his feet look like they are being eaten by sharks. In fact I might have to buy some more pairs of these socks for my two nephews for their birthdays as they are still young enough to enjoy matching Daddy.

Final stage – DIY chocolate shark gifts

My Big Brother is one of the biggest chocolate lovers going (I have many memories of him eating chocolate fudge cake for what felt like EVERY dessert) and I do love buying him chocolate gifts. While it is a little easy to head straight to the chocolate it is also something that I know he is DEFINITELY going to enjoy.

I found a milk chocolate megalodon shark tooth on Fossilera which I thought could be a possibility but then I discovered Jaws the Chocolate Shark and thought I was onto a winner…until I discovered the price and the price to ship to the UK. So the final option was to look at making my own (I also love crafting and handmade stuff) but trying to find an affordable shark mould was nearly as off-putting as the price to ship a chocolate shark from the USA to the UK.

BUT I am nothing if not persistent when it comes to getting the right present and decided to google ‘make your own chocolate mold’ (using the American spelling to find more results) and came across an ace little tutorial on The Kitchn talking about molding chocolate in any shape. All I needed to do was find a shark to mould, which I found for 50p while on holiday in The Cotswolds, and I was away!

And the results, while perhaps a little sugar coated (is that really a bad thing though?!) and one looking a little wet from where I washed some sugar off, are pretty ok – you can at least tell it is a shark (hopefully) – and all in all I was pretty pleased with the shark-based present I put together for my Big Brother. He was also pretty pleased (well he has worn the socks, watched the film, and eaten the chocolate so I assume he was pretty pleased).