5 Homemade Presents for your Man!

My hubby had his birthday last week… which means the task of coming up with birthday presents for me! We are definitely on a budget this year, so while I loved the idea to celebrate every hour with a fun new present I knew I needed to come up with some great homemade options that wouldn’t break the bank! Which is how I came up with 5 homemade presents for your man… well for my man!

We were taking a 7 hour road trip on his birthday so I decided to work on 8 different presents… so that he had something exciting to look forward to throughout the entire trip! I think it worked… he loved it!

The best part? Short of a few extra presents (I did buy him the pokemon game he’s been asking for) the main 5 presents were made for under $10! A $5 pack of 8.5 x 11 scrapbook paper, a $3 set of envelopes, a $1 pack of cards and a white ceramic mug for 88¢! Score!

Coupon Book

The hubby says his absolute favorite present was this coupon book! I’m not sure why he loved it so much… but I love how easy it was to make! I used 6 pieces of paper from my paper pack… and cut them down to size. Once they were all the same size I used a hole punch to punch two holes along the left hand side. From there you can get super fancy with markers and embellishments… I kept it simple with a large black sharpie! I gave him plenty of “kiss me!” coupons and mixed in a couple “trevor days” or “fill in the blank” coupons! He loved it… which was my favorite part! It’s only been 3 days since his birthday and he’s already used several coupons!

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Sharpie Mug

This mug was so simple to make… and it only cost 88¢! I picked up a plain white ceramic mug at wal-mart… then using a black sharpie I wrote out all my honey’s knick-names! It took a couple tries to find the perfect configuration of words… but luckily until this baby is baked in the oven you can wash the sharpie off in the sink! Then once you have the design perfectly “drawn” on your mug it’s time to bake!

Place your mug on a baking sheet and put in the oven… then set your oven for 450F. Make sure to put your mug in the oven before you let it preheat…. you want the mug to slowly heat up with the oven instead of being thrust inside the oven once it’s fully heated! This will prevent yucky cracks! Once the oven is fully heated set the timer for 30 minutes and allow your mug to bake! When the timer goes off turn off the oven and allow your mug to cool down slowly in the oven… it might take a while but is important to prevent more of the yucky cracking! After your mug is cool it’s ready to use… wrap it up and give it to the hubby! This might not be the hubby’s favorite present but the look on his face when he opened it? It was my favorite look of the day!

52 Reasons Why I Love You!
Deck of Cards!

I think this was MY favorite present… it was sooo much fun to think of all those reasons why I love my hunny! It made me want to run home and give him a big hug! On the other hand this present did take the (second) longest to put together… mainly because I wanted to have a nice white surface in the middle of each card to write my “reasons” on. So before I ever started writing reasons I had to do a bit of prep work. I started by cutting white business cards down to size… I figured out that business cards were the perfect material for my white surface. They’re card stock so they’re sturdy, they’re pure white on the back (well mine are!) and I happened to have a whole bunch of old ones at work… that were no longer needed! So they were free! Score! Technically white paper would work just as well… it’s just not as thick so be careful with your glue.

The second step was to glue my white cards onto each of my 52 deck of cards… I tried to keep them apart for drying. You don’t want them to stick together! It definitely got harder towards the end of the deck… luckily I was able to separate several of my cards that tried to… err… stick together! The third step was to punch holes in each card… I re-positioned the hole punchers on a three hole punch to be able to punch the holes in the same place every time! Once all of this was done I was able to go through and write out all of my reasons… then I simply strung a white ribbon through each hole and called it good! I think it turned out super cute! What do y’all think?

Open When Letters

These were definitely the MOST time consuming… but I think the hubby will use them the most. Over the course of a week I wrote 14 “Open When” Letters… you know “Open when you want to know my dreams for the future” or “Open when you’re home alone and miss me” that sort of thing. My hubby is about to spend 2 weeks in Kentucky with his Dad and Grandma… without me. I’ll be at home working and unpacking with my Mama and Brother… so we’ll be apart. For 2 weeks. I know that’s not a long time but when you’re use to spending every day with someone even a weekend seems like a lifetime. So I’m hoping these letters really help him to get through some of those hard times. I even wrote him a special one just for this week “Open when you’re at your dad’s house without me”.

The sad part? I looked all over Wal-mart, in every section I could think of and couldn’t find a single stationary set. You know a set of matching letter paper and envelopes? Like you see Frenchie writing during the sleepover scene in Grease! Do people not write old-fashioned letters anymore? I have a million stationary sets from when I was little (I’m slightly obsessed) but since half my house is still in boxes I thought I would just run to the store and grab a set! Nope! Luckily I found this set of Friendly Forrest scrapbook paper in an 8.5 x 11 size… it was only five dollars and at least 15 sheets have lines so I decided it would work!

Bonus FREEBIE!

Looking for a truly memorable gift? Just scroll to the bottom of the page to download all 20 Open Letters I personally used for my hubby. If you haven’t heard of “Open When” Letters they’re a series of letters that your hubs can open when… he’s missing you or dreaming of the future. My hubs absolutely loved them for his birthday last year!

Enjoy!

Movie Tickets

Ok this one might be kind of bogus… but my sweet pea has been begging me to see the movie Inside Out for weeks now! Since I wasn’t sure when or where we would be going to the movies I decided to make him a cute little set of “fake” movie tickets! He opened them and just started laughing… saying “oh my goodness these are so cute!”

The funny part for me? While he says he loves the handmade presents best… and I totally believe him… take a look at the smile on his face when he opened up a package of his favorite blue raspberry sour punch straws!