Birthday Care Package

I thought I would share with you the beginnings of what is probably the last deployment care package we will send to The Man as we get closer to the end of our big year. This idea was inspired by something I saw online, but of course I didn't bookmark it so I would have it for later to credit this idea to. Ergh.

I realized when you're working with a 12" by 12" box and scrapbook paper is 12" by 12" it's pretty easy to just trim just a little bit off the edges to get it to fit nicely. I used plain old school glue to attach it to the box. The letters are from a scrapbooking alphabet punch-out book. So it was easy to just pop out the letters I needed. The box didn't take me nearly as much time as I expected and adds a fun touch.

Since The Man will be back a few weeks after he gets the package I didn't want to send anything substantial that he will have to send home or that he'll have to deal with before he leaves. That cut out a lot of options for gifts. One gift we are sending him that he will bring home is a tee shirt from The Bug's elementary school. We decided that would be a great gift for him to celebrate her attending this school she's wanted to go for so long and living at our house.

So I had to get creative on what else I could fill the box with and found a few things he could share with his office mates and friends. Here's what I've found:

• dried fruit & raw nuts
• packaged cookies
• chocolate
• chips & crackers
• gourmet jelly beans
• microwave popcorn
• nutrition bars
• cards
• confetti

I know guys pretend like their birthdays are no big deal, but I really do think they like all the attention when they're getting it. So I decided to wrap up every little item so he has lots to look forward to and lots to unwrap. He always appreciates it when I wrap gifts with a little personality and has commented many times that he hates to unwrap my gifts because they are so pretty. I hope that seeing wrapped gifts will touch his heart a little bit and connect him to me in that special way.

Obviously I still need to put ribbon on all the gifts and spruce them up a little bit with a pretty handmade tag too. There is a pretty big stack of wrapped packages on the table so I stuck post-it notes on each item temporarily so that I can remember what each one is.

I hope this will give him a nice break from the routine and monotony of the day to take some time to celebrate his birthday. We're going to put this in the mail early this week for a mid-April delivery. I'll be back later this morning with a 30-day Home Reorganization Project Week 6 update.