Paper Anniversary - The Gifts

Dan and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Saturday.

We like the idea of traditional gifts... and the first year is paper. We were both stumped and perplexed for a little while... and then my creative side came out.

I ended up typing out our wedding vows to each other on Photoshop and printed them out in 5x7 size. I trimmed off the excess white border, and put them in opposite sides of a three window frame. For the middle window, I had to include a wedding photo, of course! I chose one of my favorites, made it black and white, printed it to 5x7, and trimmed the white border.

I made sure to print all three on cardstock to play it safe... that counts as paper, right?

Dan went with concert tickets for me. Tickets = paper... I'm convinced. We're going to see The Rolling Stones play in what is probably their last tour ever... at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City (where the Chiefs play)! This is seriously my dream concert in my dream venue. I'm a little nervous about being 29 weeks pregnant at the time, but... Baby Cookie will just end up loving classic rock 'n roll, right? It's the same day as our baby shower, so we'll be going after that, and I'm stoked! (He technically didn't buy the tickets yet because he's been monitoring them online at other locations, and the prices are dropping significantly shortly before the concerts... so we're going to do that!)

How did you celebrate your first anniversary?
What's your favorite anniversary gift yet?


    

Deck of Cards Anniversary Book

Bear with me if you've already seen this post (on my old blog, Always Write 2012). I am slowly but surely trying to transfer all of my DIY projects to THIS blog so people don't keep finding by crafts on my OLD blog. I want them reading over here!

Last fall, I joined a website called Pinterest. I was skeptical at first, but I have gotten some of the best craft ideas from there, not to mention all the delicious recipes I find! If you haven't heard of it, CHECK IT OUT now! :)

Anyhow, while browsing, I found an amazing idea for an anniversary gift for Dan. We celebrated three years of dating on February 25th, 2012, so I realize this post is long overdue (as in... a year and a half overdue -- oops!). My apologies.

Basically, I wrote out 52 reasons why I love Dan (similar to the fishbowl gift I made for him for our one year anniversary, but this one's more compact!) and put one on each card to complete an entire deck. I used the Joker cards for the front and back covers, and I think it turned out really cute. Dan LOVED this gift, and I had fun making it. I wouldn't advise using the jewels I did, though, as they made it larger and unable to close -- oops!

And what would a blog post be without pictures?

I started by punching two holes in each card and them assembling the deck with binder rings.

I made even strips of cardstock to glue on each card...

small pieces of cardstock for each card! 

I wrote one reason why I love Dan on each piece of cardstock

...and then I glued one to each card!

I painted matte Mod-Podge over each one to make sure they stay on the cards...

I let them dry on paper towels, but next time I would use something that wouldn't get stuck to the cards. I had to peel it off afterward.

I hot-glued two charms to each card.

all put together...

the cover

the back cover..

so pretty :) 

inside the box I gave it to him in :)

scrapbooking paper on a shoe box! Someone forgot to buy a gift bag.. ;)

All ready to give to Dan! :) 

If you ever have any creative ideas, let me know. I am always looking for new things to make to give as gifts and to blog about!