Personalized Gifts That Still Arrive in Time for Christmas

Most orders are handcrafted within 3 to 5 business days after you approve the design. That word — after — is the part people miss. The clock starts when you say the layout is right, not when you place the order.

So the first step, in practice, is the one you control: you send the photograph, Wiley lays out the design and shows it to you, and you approve it. Nothing is printed until then. If you take two days to look at the design, the whole thing is two days later, which is why it is worth having your photograph ready before you order rather than after.

Shipping is $10 flat nationwide standard, which arrives in about 5 to 7 business days after your piece ships. Expedited is $25 flat and arrives in about 2 to 3 business days after it ships. $25 expedited shipping is always charged, whatever the order size.

One thing worth knowing if you are reading this in December: our free-standard-shipping offer on a first order over $150 runs through October 31, so it is not available during the holiday shopping season. From November on, standard shipping is the $10 flat rate, or $25 for expedited. Sales tax is calculated automatically at checkout for your location.

Add the two halves together and you get the number we publish: order by December 5 for Christmas gifts. That gives the design approval, the handcrafting, and standard shipping enough room to land before the holiday, without anything being rushed.

We put the same date on the site all year so nobody has to do this arithmetic in a parking lot in December.

Then upgrade the shipping, not the expectations. Expedited shipping at $25 can still save a late order more often than people expect, because it arrives in about 2 to 3 business days after the piece ships rather than 5 to 7.

What we will never do is promise you an arrival date we cannot control. If you tell us your date, you will get a straight answer about whether it is doable, and if it is not, we will say so.

If the timing genuinely will not work, there is one option that is not a compromise. A keepsake gift certificate costs exactly the slate price — nothing added, nothing taken off, and no expiry — and the recipient receives a card with a gift code telling them the piece is already paid for and they choose the photograph whenever they are ready.

That solves the real snag in holiday gift-giving, which is usually not time at all. It is that you do not have the photograph the recipient would choose. With a certificate, the gift is given on Christmas morning and the piece is made afterward, at whatever pace the recipient wants.

One honest note, because it explains every date on this page. Albritton’s Art is one workshop in Coshocton, Ohio, and one person does the work. There is no production line to add a shift to in December, and we would rather tell you that plainly than take an order we cannot make well.

That is also why the pieces hold up. Each one is printed by hand onto real natural slate, with the chiseled edge left exactly as the stone split, and it arrives with its own display stand.