A little gift booklet

Roger's birthday is two weeks from today and I wanted to do something really awesome for him because he always does the best things for me (remember this??).  I've been planning his birthday and Christmas presents probably since June and they both were/are things that I knew he would love.

For his birthday, I planned to buy him killer seats to a Sabres hockey game.  All up on the ice and everything.  It would have been the best surprise ever and I really know he would have been so happy.

Well thanks to the NHL Lockout that took effect, my plans are ruined!  So I decided to give him his present today, even though it was kind of pointless and a little disappointing for me.

When I give gifts, I like to go all out.  And I wanted to do something better than just the whole throw-the-tickets-in-a-card or at-the-bottom-of-a-big-box cliche-type ideas.  So, luckily, thanks to the craftiest girl ever, I found the idea of a little gift booklet.

So I made this.  Bethany's rendition of the gift booklet called for something she called glassine envelopes, which were more transparent than these ones.  But I went to Michael's and after looking for a bit, I asked for help and the girl looked at me like I was nuts.

After being looked at like I had two heads, being told they had nothing like what I wanted, and scrounging around and finding it myself, I ended up with vellum envelopes, which are almost just as awesome and I actually liked the softer look it gave my project.  I took them home, inserted one envelope's flap into the other, taped it together, and made it look like a folder.

I just Google- and Instagram-searched photos of the Sabres logo and the Sabres arena, slapped them into a Word document, printed it off, and used those for the front page.  Instead of using scissors, I ripped the edges to make them fit into the envelopes, which I thought fit with the softer look of the envelope.  I printed off a yellow and blue rendition of Buffalove and even created my own calendar of October in Word.  I was going to circle the date I ended up picking before I gave it to him.

I especially loved this project because it had a little piece of him in it.  The aqua sparkly ribbon I used-- he bought that for me on a day that I had a migraine so bad I thought I was going to be sick.  And he knew the minute he saw it that it was the ribbon he bought me.  Another one of my favorite parts of this project was the little teeny tiny mini clothespin.

I guess it might work out for the better because if the NHL ever decides to agree on a contract, we can pick the day we go together and we can make it work better for both of us.  I was afraid the day I picked would interfere with his soccer games...

I think this project is something I'll recreate in the future because it's relatively easy and it gives a little charm to a gift that, on the outside, might look a little boring.

So, for now, I'm just looking for some other ideas for things to get him for his birthday!