Unique Birthday Gift Idea: A Gift A Year

May is crazy for us. We have four birthdays in about five weeks. Needless to say by the time we complete the run, there’s an over abundance of cake around this time of year and perhaps limited supply of birthday ideas.

This year I wanted to do something special for Derek’s birthday. I don’t know about you, but I always have a hard time picking out just the right thing. Guys seem to buy what they want when they want it and what they always really want is so expensive, right?! (Please tell me I am not alone in thinking this…)

In the end, I decided to celebrate with a unique birthday gift idea. I wanted to each year of his life with a special little gift so we had a gift-a-year birthday celebration.

I tried picking out quirky items that reminded me of specific moments or little things that I just knew he loved. Once I collected them all together, I packaged them up in some simple kraft packaging and labeled each with a number – one for each year of his life.

I had so much fun making the embossed gift tags. It gave me the perfect excuse to try out the VersaMark ink Tsukineko sent out about a month ago. Embossing was sooo much easier than I thought! Essentially all you need for the project is a Pigment ink pad (I used a clear ink so that I could swap out the embossing colors easily), stamps, embossing powders and a heat gun.

Seriously, barely took anytime at all and it was such a fun element!

I attached the year tags a number of different ways, but I mainly used twine and clothespins.

You can see the gifts were pretty small. I bought things like Mexican Coke, his favorite pens, gum, candy, gift cards and dark chocolate. All pretty simple! With each item I tried to pick out things that were normal and yet completely unique to him…I mean common, who only like the orange and yellow Starburst. Everyone knows that the pink are the best, right?!

I loved doing a gift a year. I think I might try doing it for other important birthdays!

What unique ways do you celebrate birthdays?