If you live in Sydney, Australia or will be travelling there with your partner between now and 31 March 2010, book into the Medusa in trendy Darlinghurst in Sydney.

It’s In The Stars has teamed up with Contemporary Hotels so that guests staying at this contempory luxury boutique hotel can receive a LoveStars astrology report for couples as part of the LoveStars of Medusa package!

Ideal for Valentines Day getaways and anniversary celebrations, you’ll receive one night’s accommodation in a Deluxe room, a LoveStars report (after supplying your birth details), upon arrival, Aveda products in your room, newspaper and Lindt chocolates, complimentary use of Fitness First Gym and Cook & Phillip Pool, late checkout (subject to availability) for just $240 or you can upgrade to a Premium Deluxe room for $290 per night or the Grand room for $340 per night.

Women give a lot of meaning to gifts and if they’re in a relationship on Valentines Day, well, they have the code-cracking abilities of an Enignma machine when it comes to deciphering what you really mean!

So if a guy gives:

Chocolate – no, he REALLY doesn’t think you’re too fat and by the way, he has a sweet tooth too.

Flowers – he’s not very original but he wanted to get you something. Bonus points if it’s long-stemmed and at least a dozen, hundreds of minus points if it’s from a bucket at the service station.

Gift card – hmmm, not too much going on here. He’s on the right track if it’s for one of your favourite stores, he’s going to get in trouble if it’s for something like SuperCheap  Auto.

Greeting card (with a joke message) - he’s either 15 and completely broke, it’s still very new, or he’s having an affair and doesn’t want his wife to find out.

Greeting card (with a romantic message) – he loves you, but he’s still broke.

iPod, mobile phone – it’s not a traditional gift but you’ll always think of him when you use it so yeah, he loves you!

Jewellery – this entirely depends on what it is and where it’s from. If they’re fun chandelier earrings from Diva, he’s broke or 15 years-old, if it’s an expensive bracelet, earrings or drum roll, an engagement ring, it’s for real, baby!

Lingerie – well you know he wants you to put it on so he can rip it right off again.

Perfume – he’s not very original but he was running late for your date and ran into the department store to get something, hell, anything.

Personalised romantic gift – ooh, he really does love you and wants to make you happy. If it’s something you can keep forever he wants it to work!

Romantic meal or picnic – if it’s a picnic with your favourite foods, he is making a gigantic effort. If it’s a romantic meal at a beautiful restaurant he is also making a big effort as he is so embarrassed to be seen doing something so mushy.

Weekend away – he loves you and wants to make you very happy indeed…

A new survey by It’s In The Stars about Father’s Day attitudes has found that seven in ten Dads don’t really celebrate Father’s Day, but it’s women (not men) who are upset that their children don’t make an effort.

Of those men who celebrate Father’s Day, they are most likely to want – and receive – personalised gifts relevant to their families. Here’s some of the Father’s Day survey findings:

More women than men are likely to make an effort celebrating Father’s Day 

• 56.4% of women but only 30.0% of men celebrated last Father’s Day with their Dad by giving him a gift and/or sharing a family meal at a restaurant or at home.
• Men are three times as likely as women to overlook or ignore Father’s Day, believing that their father ‘is fine with that’ (17.5% vs 5.1%)

More women than men upset that their kids make little effort on Father’s Day 

• More women than men (52.6% vs 44.4%) say that their kids made a fuss of their father/them on Father’s Day
• Men are twice as likely as women to report that they don’t care about Father’s Day (33.3% vs 15.7%)
• More women than men are disappointed that their children don’t make a fuss of their Dad on Father’s Day (31.5% vs 22.2%).

Most people spend very little on Father’s Day gifts

• Nearly one-quarter (23%) spent nothing on their Dad for Father’s Day while the same proportion spent $25-$50
• Most people (28%) spent $50-$100 on a gift and/or on going out with their Dad for Father’s Day
• One-third (37%) spent nothing at all or less than $25 on a Father’s Day gift
• One in 25 (4%) spend more than $150 on Father’s Day gifts

Women more likely than men to see celebrating occasions with family as important 

• Women outrank men in considering it’s important to celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, christenings, engagements, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and weddings
• Both men and women rank birthdays, weddings and Christmas as the top three occasions – although not in the same order
• Of the eight occasions, men rank Father’s Day in seventh place, with christenings coming in last. Women rank Father’s Day in fifth place, after Mother’s Day.
• Women are far more likely than men to view celebrating/recognising Fathers Day as important (77% vs 46%).

Men most likely to want – and receive – personalised gifts for Father’s Day 

• The best two gift category “matches” in terms of what men wish to receive as a Father’s Day gift and what women intend to give are personalised gifts (17.9% vs 16.6%) which suggests that men are more sentimental about their families than we give them credit for, and a weekend away (5.1% vs 5.5%)
• One in four men (25.6%) want books, CDs or DVDs for this Father’s Day, but only 8.3% of women intend to give them.
• Similarly, 12.8% of men want a special dinner out, but only 5.1% of women plan to give them), electronic gadgets (10.4% vs 5.5%), pampering (10.4% of men want them, but no women plan to give them), clothes (5.1% vs 0%) and sports equipment (7.6% vs 5.5%).
• Very few men (2.5%) want BBQ equipment but 8.3% of women intend to give it, with similar results for sports equipment (2.5% vs 5.5%).

I attended a baby shower recently and as is the usual practice, watched as the mum-to-be opened her mountain of baby gifts. There were a surprising number of items which were, frankly, useless, (one was a mother and child figurine, and another was a ceramic moneybox, for example), and it made me wonder about the wasted opportunity to buy her something decent that she would have liked and could have used.

Unlike a wedding, where most couples give their hapless guests a wishlist of items that they would really like, I haven’t yet attended a baby shower where the mother gave us directions to a gift registry list. For many Australians, baby registries are still uncommon and still seem a little grasping. But to help those baby shower guests who don’t have children and might not know what you need, it can be a godsend. If not, you could end up with two dozen white 000-size singlets and socks, and a nappy cake, but nothing that your baby can use after his or her first six weeks.

And there’s so many interesting gifts out there! After clothes, personalised gifts are the most popular baby gifts, especially for nieces and nephews. And who said you have to keep it to purely baby things, anyway? This might be the perfect time for a heavily pregnant mother to receive say, a gift certificate for a lovely salon pampering session, a weekend away or a dinner out with her partner before she enters Baby World!

It might be worth checking out My Registry.com which lets you add items from any store in the world onto one centralised gift registry. It lists 6 registry types to get you started: “Baby Shower”, “Bridal”, “Lifestyle”, “Birthday”, “Student” and for the on-trend among us, “Green”. It then further breaks all of these except for “Birthday” into a handful of types with product suggestions for each one. The suggested items for a “Posh Baby” registry are quite different from an “Eco Baby”, while “Lifestyle – For Teens” is going to provide a radically different  range of items than “Lifestyle – For the Home”. It also has a cash gift fund option, which will always be ideal for a young family.

In very exciting gift news, It’s In The Stars has teamed up with Australia’s leading online florist, Roses Only to create a stunning gift to take their breath away!

If you’ve got an anniversary, birthday, Christmas, engagement, wedding or important romantic gift occasion, you can now give your partner a box of beautiful long-stemmed roses from Roses Only with a boxed gift certificate for a beautifully designed, hardcover, 30-35 page LoveStars report!

And if you’ve got a baby shower, a christening, naming ceremony or want to delight a new parent, you can surprise them with a box of long-stemmed roses with a boxed gift certificate for a beautifully designed, hardcover 45-50 page BabyStars report!

Note: deliveries currently for Sydney and Melbourne only. Please contact Roses Only to request other locations.

Right now is a good time to start buying Christmas gifts. I know that shopping six months out in June could seem insane or pointless, but it actually saves your time, money and sanity.

Here’s 10 reasons why it pays off to buy Christmas gifts throughout the year but definitely starting in June (if not in January)!

1. Mid-year sales. This is the ideal opportunity to save big-time on non-perishable gifts as many companies try to clear stock. Buy now, save now.

2. Time to find cool things. Now is a great time to join a few of the online shopping newsletters which list specials and feature unusual items every week. You’re bound to see something cool to make ‘em go “ooooh”. Plus, having all your Christmas shopping done by the end of November gives you plenty of time to enjoy the holiday season in relaxed style with a lot less stress.

3. Choice. There’s nothing more terrifying (at least, to me) than a sea of people in the department store, desperately grabbing at anything pre-gift-wrapped on 24 December. By taking your time now, you get to choose gifts that are really cleverly thought out, affordable, and that they’ll love.

4. Saving money. If you spend $50 per gift per person (minimum) and you have to buy gifts for at least 10 people, you’re looking at $500 which is a big chunk-o-change out of your wallet on one day. If you buy one gift per fortnight starting now until the end of November, you won’t even notice it, and you’ll have more money to blow on going out to parties in December. Promise.

5. Personalization. If you want to get someone special a personalized gift, there’s no use deciding that on 24 December. Most online personalized gift websites will cut off their ordering dates by 17 December at the latest to ensure Christmas delivery. If it takes up to 21 days to be customised and delivered, it’s better getting it done safely now, and put away. Plus, last-minute panic orders can sometimes lead to disastrous typos like a badly spelled name or address, for example and no time to get them replaced.

6. Spying/prying – otherwise known as research. Start asking now about your favourite people’s colours, flavours, fragrances, music, movies, hobbies etc. It can take a while to find out what people are really into and you can be sure of giving them something that would delight them. And by asking now, they’ll have forgotten about it so they have a nice surprise on the day. Caveat: leave asking the what-would-you-like-Santa-to-bring questions for the littlest kids and teenagers til last as their tastes change so quickly they could be into Dora the Explorer one minute and Lady GaGa the next.

7. Christmas is when retailers make money. For many retailers, Christmas is THE most profitable time for them to finally make some money so they won’t throw it away with deep discounts for procrastinating shoppers. Cha-ching! Many of them won’t have anything on sale until 26 December.

8. Benefit from off-season/different hemisphere shopping specials. The wonderful world of online shopping exposes you to sooooo many cool things and if you buy them ahead of time, you can save heaps, too. Does your cousin love diving? You’ll find great specials in southern hemisphere (winter-time) June. Ditto if you stock up on fun, out-of-season ski products from US sites now in their summertime so your mad uncle can get piste in the Alps at Christmas.

9. Gift cards/gift certificates. Pick up one or two of these next week for clothing, hardware, books, movies, or music and you’ve already gotten a couple of gifts for those hard-to-buy-for people crossed off your list. You might not be so generous with the amounts if you had to buy 10 of them in one go, though.

10. Sea mail. If you happen to choose such weight-challenged gifts as books for friends and family living overseas, you’ll have to spend a packet just to get it there in time. Shopping for it now, and mailing it in October means your gifts will get there in time, but at a fraction of the airmail cost.

The latest personalized gifts survey results are in! A new survey by It’s In The Stars on personalized gifts has found the following:

* The top 5 most popular gift occasions on which to give a personalized gift are birthdays, christenings, new babies, anniversaries and Mothers Day

* Jewellery, day of birth and art items are the 3 most popular types of personalized gifts

* The top 3 ways to personalize a gift are by name, day of birth and photography

* Most personalized gifts are given to partners, friends and children

* About 40% of personalized gifts are bought online with Gen Xers the most likely to buy from personalized gift websites

* Most people spend $50 or less on personalized gifts – Baby Boomers spend the most

* Over 60% have given two or more personalized gifts in the last year

* Most people would wait up to 7 days to get something personalized AND delivered to them or the recipient

* Gen Ys are the most likely to make use of a gift wrapping service and to give a gift certificate so the recipient could select their own personalized gift

* Cancerians and Taureans tie as the best gift-givers, voted as the Sun signs known for giving gifts that delight the recipient

For more details visit http://www.itsinthestarsonline.com/verve/_resources/personalized-gifts-survey-findings.pdf

Have you ever bought a gift for someone with their name, birthdate or photo? It may have been their birthday, for a new baby or for someone’s wedding gift? Perhaps you bought it at a boutique, a bazaar or online? Let us know in our personalized gifts survey and you could win one of 5 x 30-minute phone astrology consultations worth $59 each!

Have you ever bought someone a personalized gift that’s, you know, all about them? It may have been for their birthday or a wedding, and it may have included their name, photo or birthdate in some way. Personalized gifts are usually pretty popular because everyone’s favourite topic is themselves (followed closely by the people they love).

So we want to know all about it! And of course, if you know a really cool gift-giver we just HAVE to know what their Sun sign is!

Please take the opportunity to tell us about it in the Inaugural Personalized Gifts Survey (it’ll take 3 minutes – and don’t worry, it’s completely anonymous – it won’t hurt a bit!).

Quick poll: When are you most likely to give your partner a romantic personalised gift? For your anniversary? Their birthday? Christmas? A wedding? Valentines Day? Vote now!