24 Hours of Gifts and a DIY Birthday Project

Over a month ago, we celebrated our 24th birthdays... Several things have happened since then, but this is where I will pick our life story back up since we have had a little bit of a blog-break ;).

My birthday in 2008

  Let me start off by saying that my husband and I are somewhat funny when it comes to gifts. We both agree that we would rather give time or memories instead of items. I'm not going to lie--when it comes time to get gifts for Christmas I go off on an annual rant about how we should just skip gift giving all together because we don't need more "things" (which we have actually done one Christmas). 

  Anyway, when we were first starting to date we decided that instead of just giving birthday gifts we would plan a fun day for the other. For example, Brian once took me to Galveston  where we went to Moody Gardens and then we had a picnic on the beach which he packed in a new picnic basket/backpack. 

So far we have had more fun with our birthday adventures than simply giving a gift to unwrap, so I think our tradition will carry on.

This is how we spent our birthdays this year:

His birthday:

Keeping with the 24th birthday theme I decided to do 24 hours worth of gifts/activities (I only did it during normal hours of the day so it really took two days). We budgeted ourselves to $50, so I had to get creative with our day of activities/gifts/meals (free Chick-fil-A lunch for example). Some of his favorite gifts included a puzzle, which our friends who came over that evening helped us put together, a speed square and torpedo level (tools), Oreos and angel food cake.

24 hours worth of gifts

Free Chick-Fil-A day.

 Finding all of the gifts and planning out the day was a blast! I'd like to think that opening all of the gifts and spending the day together was fun too, right Brian?

  

Her Birthday:

 Brian knows how much I enjoy DIY projects, so he decided to plan a birthday project that was on my Pinterest to-do list that we could make together and blog about later. A few days before my birthday, we swung by Michaels and Home Depot and ended up with these (I was not aware of the specific project at the time but he made sure I liked the "pieces" of the project): 

A frame, hooks and scrapbook paper. 

Brian chose a key holder project where you use a picture frame and he sketched out a plan to make it just right for our house.

Here were the other tools that we used for the project:

(we also used the Cricut Classic Font cartridge, and the Printing 101 cartridge for the letters and plus sign)

 Brian put the hooks into the picture frame, measuring and drilling out starter holes (they just screwed in but pre-drilling made it easier).

 I played around with the sizes and font of the letters. We knew we wanted it to say S+B since that is a common theme with us.

 All in all, this project took less than 30 minutes, was simple and fun. Here is our final project:

 And here it is fulfilling its purpose in our home: to hold our keys.

Now we have a fun little reminder of our time spent together on my birthday! 

Anyone else do something different to celebrate birthdays? I'm always looking for more ideas of fun ways to celebrate together! 

Many Blessings,

       S+B