By Lorraine Sanders

ONCE, GIVING personalized gifts was all the rage. I was in fifth grade, and puff paint was revolutionizing the art world. Ben Franklin's was under siege with girls and their mothers ransacking aisles and tipping plastic margarita glasses, Lucite picture frames, and white Hanes T-shirts into carts. By Dec. 26, I had amassed a fortune in personalized giftage. There it was: my name, carefully puff-painted in script, in print, and in cutesy cartoon bubbles across any number of previously generic items.

The days of painting names and gluing glitter onto anonymous things have long since passed (and if they haven't, well, you might want to get that checked out). But the urge to give and get personalized, "just for you" gifts lingers on. If you're having flashbacks of those engraving shops in the mall, take a deep breath. Personalized gifts don't have to be monogrammed, embroidered, or adulterated in such frightening ways. The mother of originality, San Francisco has myriad options for personalized items that won't look like something your friends gave you when you were 12.

To give something personalized, start thinking about what gets your intended recipient jumping around like a school kid on Mountain Dew. Say your giftee has a fashion streak. Whether s/he thrives on the highs and lows of thrifting or simply appreciates fine tailoring, consider giving a one-of-a-kind clothing item. A personal tailor sounds glamorous, like Hollywood in the 1940s or hand-stitched Italian suits. But if you think clothing designed and fitted to your exact specifications costs a fortune, you obviously haven't had the pleasure of meeting Al Sattire, proprietor of North Beach's Custom Originals (1314 Grant, S.F. 415-693-9900). For off-the-rack prices, Sattire custom-designs retro and vintage clothing for men and women. His shop carries several styles for trench coats, suits, skirts, and dresses. If you like what you see, you pick the fabric, thread, and buttons and hold still while Sattire takes between 25 and 45 measurements. In three to six weeks, you'll be ready to sport your purchase from North Beach to Noe Valley. Fittings scheduled during the tailoring process ensure that the final product covers your body like it was born there. If you've got your own ideas, sketches, pages ripped from Lucky, or vintage items nearing disintegration, Sattire will create an entirely new pattern to suit your needs.

Photographer Kendra Luck also works with patterns, but her products aren't made of fabric. Luck, a.k.a. the Dogumentarian (www.dogumentarian.com, 510-527-1011), is more interested in the behavioral patterns of dogs. A former news photographer, Luck photographs her canine subjects in that same documentary style. On shoots, she puts her subjects in their natural surroundings, such as a favorite park or that space on the rug. She wants the photo to capture the owner's impression of the dog, those idiosyncrasies that only owners know well. "It's very personal. It's both a memory of this animal they love, and it's also a piece of fine art," Luck says. If you're giving a Dogumentarian photo, you may have to find a creative way to steal your recipient's dog (under the cover of night, perhaps?). After you accomplish that, the rest is easy.

If your giftee is the notorious ham of your group, she's probably in front of a lens as often as Luck is behind one. You want her to look good. After all, she's in every damn one of your pictures. You could chuck a bar of soap, lip gloss, and some Jergens in a basket and call it a present, but your gift will say something completely different if you turn to Reflect (www.reflect.com, 1-800-243-2288). A Reflect present will say the recipient's name. Literally. Based in San Francisco, the online bath and beauty retailer offers personalized products that customers develop by answering a series of questions about their favorite colors and smells, habits, skin type, and personality. After configuring a product blend, Reflect emblazons the bottle with the recipient's name and saves the information for future orders. If you know your giftee well, you can use the site to create personalized fragrances and makeup palettes. For the less daring, Reflect sells customizable gift packs that are impossible to screw up. And with a location right in the city, Reflect products arrive in record time.

Reflect isn't the only place for customized labels. Hayward's Signature Wines (www.signaturewines.com, 510-259-6555) takes midmarket brands you've probably already heard of and labels them according to your whims. If you know someone who ain't nothin' but a hound dog, try the Elvis label. To remind out-of-town relatives of what they're missing, the San Francisco labels induce just the right amount of jealousy. For a higher price, you can design your very own label. It's not recommended, but you can also take a ride on the cheese train and choose labels with sentimental phrases like "Together, Always." Prices range from $40 for two bottles to hundreds of dollars for cases.

Signature Wines is all about the label, but San Francisco's Crushpad (1890 Bryant, Ste. 102, S.F. 415-864-4232, www.crushpadwine.com) is all about wine. Billed as a community winery, the relatively new establishment is ripe for folks willing to spring for a barrel or more of custom-made wine.

"Some people are just wine geeks and have been passionate about wine for years. We also have some restaurants that are making private labels, and some retailers doing the same thing," Crushpad marketing director Tracey Brandte says of the company's varied clientele.

To make custom wine, Crushpad's winemakers help clients choose grapes, varietals, presses, proper fermentation temperatures, barrels, aging times, and more. In fact, there are more than 30 decisions you'll make before you're ready to run with your custom brand of wine. At the end of the process, which can take anywhere from nine months to two years, depending on your wine's characteristics, you walk away with fine wine you can't find anywhere else on earth.

Customized interior touches are gift options that can transform rooms quickly and economically. Call Art Design San Francisco (www.artdesignaj.com, 415-577-4274), and three artists and one assistant will enter your home with paintbrushes in hand and leave art in their wake. Last summer, husband and wife team Jerry Warmsley and Alyssa Morgan joined with Devon George to start the company. Warmsley and Morgan specialize in faux finishes, murals, painting, and 3-D installations, while George operates Art Design's online store and creates intricately painted body castings of pregnant bellies. The couple's tree installations begin as painted tree trunks on walls and bloom overhead into a swarm of branches. According to Morgan, any tree can become a functional piece of art. She's turned branches into curtain rods, coat racks, and lighting fixtures. Next on her list? Creating a tree that doubles as a cat post.

George's belly casts have been a hit with expecting mothers. After creating the cast, George works with the client to develop a design able to express the mother's prenatal experience – and we're not talking paintings of Twinkies and pickles. Her work is about the emotional experience, or the season the baby arrives. Once complete, the painted belly cast can be hung on a nursery room wall or mounted on canvas.

Painting fanciful designs may lift a giftee's spirits, but it'll really piss off most landlords. You wouldn't want to give the gift of certain eviction, now would you? Giving personalized home accents to renters calls for something easily removed and transported. And, of course, you want your gift to fit the recipient's surroundings so perfectly that it literally lights up the room. Handmade lamp shades by Eric Flaniken (www.thunderdogdesigns.com, 415-665-8220) do just that. Flaniken crafts lamp shades with materials from taffeta to silk, satin to patterned paper. He's happy to help clients make design decisions, but he'll also make anything you ask, even hot pink with furry trim. For fabric shades, Flaniken carefully stretches fabric to the lampshade frame before hand-stitching it in place. He also makes hardback shades perfect for hanging lamps and lanterns. In addition to custom shades that match your giftee's interiors, Flaniken makes a line of shades using panels of vintage kimono fabric imported from Japan.

Personalized gifts may require a bit more time and money than other gifts, but one-of-a-kind presents, sans the puffy paint, are surely something to be treasured for years to come.