DIY Open When Letters for Your Spouse

When I was making the 12 Days of Christmas Gifts for my husband, I struggled to think of something for Day 11... which is where these fun "open when" letters came in.

I had seem these floating around Pinterest for quite a while and had wanted to make a set for Dan... but I just didn't have any reason to. What better time for a fun DIY gift than the 12 Days of Christmas?!

Dan and I have been writing handwritten letters to each other for years. Since we lived apart from each other for the first five years of our relationship (and long distance for one of those years), it's just something we do. I have a decorated box of all of the letters and cards I've received from Dan, and he has mine in sheet protectors in a binder. We also wrote each other letters the night before our wedding (we were not together). We sealed them up in the middle of our ceremony in a box with a bottle of wine, and we plan on opening them either on our five year anniversary or when we need to remember all of the emotions and love we were feeling the night before tying the knot!

For this project, I started by creating 11 different labels - or the categories I wanted to write letters for. I tried to make them colors he would like rather than my favorite colors. It was fun to come up with the topics, but my husband did tell me that he'd need about a thousand of the "when I'm being annoying" letters. Oops.

I printed out the labels on cardstock and then glued them to plain white envelopes with a glue stick. Nothing fancy over here...

Inside each envelope, I placed a one page (or longer) letter the corresponds with the topic. I bundled them all together, wrapped them up, and gave them to my husband. He thought it was a really clever gift, and he has them sitting on his desk in his office now so he can open them when the time is right for each one!

If you would like to download my card covers, CLICK HERE for the PDF.

• Do you and your spouse write letters to each other?
• Do you enjoy making or receiving DIY gifts?

The 12 Days of Christmas: Spouse Edition

If you follow me on Instagram, this won't be news to you... but for the 12 days leading up to Christmas, I surprised my handsome husband with one gift each day that corresponded with the number for that day. Well, every day matched the number except day one. I think I'd be a pretty terrible wife if I made an entire batch of delicious cookies and only gave him one.

Each day when he came home from classes, I gave him that day's gift. He loved it, and I felt like a rockstar wife having something for him each of those days. I highly recommend doing this (or something similar - there are 14 days of Valentines as well that people do in February) because it was a lot of fun for both of us!

Here's what I did for each day... but they can easily be changed up to match what your husband loves! You don't HAVE to coordinate the gift with the day number, either - I just did that because I'm like that.

Day 1 - red velvet cookies

Day 2 - a "pair" of running socks

Day 3 - three new books

Day 4 - four specialty coffees

Day 5 - one journal and four pens

Day 6 - a six-pack of beer

Day 7 - a movie, popcorn, three candies, and two sodas

Day 8 - eight magnets that symbolize his time at USAFA

Day 9 - a collage of the nine cities we honeymooned in

Day 10 - a $10 gift card for when he forgets his lunch

Day 11 - eleven 'open when' letters

Day 12 - twelve local restaurants to try in 2015

And these are the tags I made to put on each gift. Aren't they cute? I've included a link to download them in a PDF file at the end of this post!

To download the 12 Days of Christmas printable tags in full size, CLICK HERE to open a PDF - I recommend printing them on cardstock so they are sturdy enough to attach to your packages!

• Have you ever done the 12 Days of Christmas? 
• Do you have any suggestions for each of the numbered days?