The "Up" Anniversary

Here's another guest entry from Tessa. She asked me for ideas for something she could make for her anniversary. I shared with her some of the ideas that I had found and she ran with them. Don't forget to check out Tessa's blog, Cake Art.

In this post, I'm going to cover 3 different presents I made for my boyfriend, Josh, for our two year anniversary. The first movie we ever saw together, actually, the first time we ever saw each other outside of work, was the movie Up. If you haven't seen the movie before. Go see it. Cry over this scene:

That part of the movie makes me cry every time and it's the inspiration behind all of my anniversary presents in the end. I didn't make each one with the connection in mind, but in the end, I made them all connect to this movie. I, of course, bought him the movie as a part of all of this!

The first present is a set of "Love Coupons" that I found here.

I printed out both, the set that they have and two blank pages of coupons.

I started out by creating a larger version of each of the coupons so I could cut them out:

 

I ended up doing this with five different colors:

Let's just ignore the table, okay? It was painted by my nephew when he was about 4 or 5 and... yeah, anyways...

I then pasted the cut out coupons on them and hole punched them before putting the ring through them.

I took them to work to show Sara and she gave me the idea to add a "used on" thing on the back, so I went home and added one:

I wrote "Expires: Never" on all of them. :)

When I added a tag to it, connecting it to "Up" it says something about, "Love coupons for whenever we want to be 'up' together and have an 'up' moment in our relationship."

~*~

The second thing I made is a book that Sara showed me here.

I started off by typing up the 52 things and printing them out in a chart so I could cut them evenly.

I took the two jokers and covered them in blue paper, using one to create a cover:

Then I pasted the 52 things on the cards:

Finally, I hole punched two holes on one side and put the binder rings in:

I added "Volume I" so I can make others for him later on. To connect this to 'up' I wrote: "Whenever you're feeling down and need a little pick-me-'up' just read this and feel a bit more 'up'."

~*~

Finally, I made an 'Up' Jar from this inspiration from Sara. I started off by printing off these five photos of Ellie and Carl from Up:

As you can see, there's one from different stages in their lives: kids, dating, wedding, marriage, and old age. I actually printed out the one of them when they were dating (and looking up!) as a circle because that's the stage Josh and I are in, so I wanted to put it on top. I ended up using Mod Podge (thanks to Sara!) and put the photos on:

 I put another layer on top which gave it a bit more of a texture to it:

Then, I added 'Up' to the top of the jar and then a bow:

I explain in the tag on this one that I decided this would be an 'Up' Jar for the two of us. Whenever we have an 'up' moment in our lives together, we'll scribble it down and add it to the jar. Whenever we have a down moment, we can reach in the jar and remember an 'up' time. Although this day hasn't happened yet, I know it'll be our first 'up' moment to add, so I already added it:

Paper Star Decoration

I was feeling crafty tonight but didn't want anything super complicated. I had found this cute idea from The Lovely Residence on how to make a paper star decoration while on Pinterest.

I didn't take a picture of my supplies but the blog that I used has more details on how to make it. 

All you need is :

6 double sided square pieces of paper. I used 12x12in paper 

Stapler

Scotch Tape

Scissors

Ruler

Ribbon to hang it. 

From the other blog she offered measurements for where to draw the lines to cut the paper.. but I used the width of my ruler to make it simpler.

I decided to take a picture of each set that I made. You staple the little side to the large side of the other.

All done! 

 Stapling the center together was a little difficult but I figured out a way to make it work. 

 This is a little large for the front door.. but I found it a home in my room. 

I wanted to put a candle sconce here.. but this adds so much more color. :) 

The whole thing took me about an hour or so to make. 

I'm thinking smaller ones would make cute decor for a classroom, wedding reception, baby shower, bridal shower, etc.

River Rock Garden Labels

I recently joined this awesome website called Pinterest. It is the best way to waste some time! I have my mom on the site now too.. While searching one day, she came across this idea from Lu Bird Baby .

 

 Here's the supplies that were used:
Large, smooth river rocks that were purchased from Michael's and Home Depot.
Sharpies

 

Some are for memorials in the garden. 

 These are to label the different vegetables that we have planted.

Seashell Candles

Today's entry comes from my dear friend, Tessa. She has her own blog that you should check out here. She makes some of the best cupcakes ever! She showed me some of these that she had made and I thought it was a wonderful idea to showcase the seashells from her vacation..

I recently took a trip to Florida. Naturally, I came back with A LOT of shells. I knew both my mother and sister would appreciate me bringing them shells back. After I got home, I started looking at these three small ziplock bags full of shells and realized... what kind of presentation is that!? "Oh, here ya go. Yeah, just a ziplock bag full of shells. Not sure what you'll do with that but hey, it's shells!" Yeah... I didn't like that. So, I randomly had this idea to create a few candles out of them. This isn't the first time I've done candles like this. Here are a couple I still have at home:

Ignore the dust on that second one. But anyways, I decided to do something similar to those with these seashells I came back with. Here's everything I used:

First step is to evenly distribute the send into the three different bowls:

Next, I put in the candle, turning it to go into the sand:

I then started putting seashells into the candle holder, starting near the candle and working my way out.

First Layer

Second Layer

Third Layer

I then tied a ribbon around the top of the candle holder:

On the back, I wrote what beach I got it from. =)

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