North Carolina has a way of sticking with people. Transplants move to Charlotte or the Triangle for a job and end up staying for good. Alumni leave after graduation and spend years telling everyone where they went to school. Both are easy to shop for once you know which one you're buying for.
This guide covers gifts from our North Carolina gifts collection for each of them.
The designs
North Carolina pieces carry one of three kinds of design:
- The Tar Heel State design. It pairs the state outline with a lighthouse, the Blue Ridge and dogwood blossoms, plus "The Tar Heel State" and EST. 1789, the year North Carolina joined the Union.
- City skylines. Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Wilmington.
- The North Carolina state designs. Sixteen simpler designs built on the state shape or the name, like Home Sweet Home, NC Initials and North Carolina Script.
For the transplant
Someone who moved to North Carolina and stayed is building a home there. Gifts for the house fit best:
- A coaster set for the new place. The North Carolina slate coaster set comes as a single coaster or a set of 4, 6 or 8, in natural slate, 4 inches across and a quarter inch thick, round or square, with hand chiseled edges and foam pads on the back. Home Sweet Home, with the state shape standing in for the O, is the one for a new house. Every coaster in a set carries the same design.
- The whole state on the wall. The Tar Heel State wall sign puts the mountains and the coast in one image: 10 by 10 inch leatherette with a sawtooth hanger, in blue or brown.
- Their new city. A skyline for the place they landed. The Charlotte skyline board shows uptown's towers rising out of the trees. The Raleigh skyline board has the capitol, church spires and a water tower among the pines.
For the homesick alum
For someone who spent four years in a North Carolina college town and moved away, the city where they went to school usually means the most. We make skylines for several college towns and cities:
- Durham: old tobacco warehouses, a smokestack and the Duke Chapel spire
- Raleigh: the capitol, church spires and a water tower
- Greensboro: church steeples, a water tower and downtown
- Winston-Salem: downtown with the rounded top of the old Wachovia building
- Wilmington: the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, church steeples and the battleship on the river
Those links go to the wall signs, which suit a first apartment. Every skyline also comes on a bamboo board and slate and wood ornaments. These are city designs, not school merchandise, so they carry no team names or logos.
For something that goes everywhere with them, the Tar Heel State water bottle is 32 oz insulated stainless steel, in black or white, with a flip top and a built-in straw. Hand wash only.
At the holidays
For a first Christmas away, the Merry Christmas From North Carolina leatherette ornament is thin, shatterproof and easy to mail. It also comes in slate and wood.
Shipping it to them
A note on "from North Carolina": these pieces aren't made in North Carolina. We engrave them to order in our workshop in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and ship within 1 to 3 business days, straight to the address you give us. Coasters and ornaments ship in a protective sleeve; boards and wall art ship in a plain box. If the unboxing matters, have it sent to you first and wrap it yourself.
See every North Carolina piece on the North Carolina collection page.
