Birthday Celebrations!

When my boyfriend and I first started talking, he told me he has never had anyone make a big deal about his birthday. He is used to planning everything himself and hasn’t ever been pampered… so my goal this year is to change that. I picked 7 gifts that I knew he would like (5 was my goal… oops). Nothing too expensive, just small things for his dog or tools for projects he mentioned. But the fun part is how he’s getting his gifts…

If you know me at all, you know I love hard. I wanted it to be special, not just sitting there opening gifts for 20 minutes. My idea is to have him open a present a day… but make it a surprise. Coming up with a way to present his presents, especially since he lives an hour away, was difficult… but I figured it out! For every present, I made a card that had a pun to go with it. For example, the pun “Skipping lunch is a big missed-steak” goes with the lunchbox I got for him to take to work every day. My goal is to have him pick an envelope every day and that will tell him which present to open.

The next step was to make it easy (and inexpensive) to tell him which presents went with which cards. My first thought was to wrap each present (or group of presents) in different wrapping paper… but that would mean buying wrapping paper. Unless I made some. I happened to have a HUGE roll of paper for a 36” wide printer. Usually, I use this as a table cover for painting but what if I used it to make my own wrapping paper. As I was pulling the paper out, I had a thought: stamps.

Last year, I bought a LOT of stamps from a camp friend. After looking through them all, I found a good handful of birthday themed ones that could be used to make their own wrapping paper. I started by getting the size needed and cutting the paper just like I would normal wrapping paper. Once my paper was cut, I chose a stamp and stamped all over it before putting a stamp on the back of the coordinating card. I wrapped up my presents, put the cards in envelopes, and now I just have to wait for his birthday! Only a few more days before he can start opening presents – don’t worry, he doesn’t read this blog so no spoilers!