As promised, here is the gift I gave Collier this season! I did sign a handmade pledge saying I would buy handmade this holiday season and most of my gifts are or were, but this one was something that I just couldn't GET handmade! So I did my best to make the wrapping as do-it-yourself as possible.
I bought him tickets to come with me to Albuquerque, NM and Salt Lake City, UT next month when I am going there for interviews. He originally was thinking of coming with me for those two, but his alternator on his car clonked out last month and he could no longer afford to without draining his savings. So, I thought about it long and hard and realized that finding a place to move where he will be happy is so important to me so I decided to bite the bullet and pay for his plane tickets. I have to pay for some of the hotel stays myself anyway, so it would be a fairly inexpensive trip for him.
Instead of just giving him a card with the tickets, I decided to tie things to a ribbon to pull out of a box. First, I put some of my books at the bottom of the box so Coll would think it's something heavy since the box was too big for me to hide in our apartment. I bought a few handmade cards from the shop next door and wrote on the outside of them with cut-out construction paper (which was probably the most time-consuming thing I could have ever chosen to do!). I made a "cover" of construction paper with a slot in the middle so that when he opened up the box he would see the first card on the top with a ribbon going into the slot. The first card is above.
This is one of the other cards - it was the first he would have opened that actually told him what was going on. Prior to this I had construction paper backed photos of the kitties, just to build the suspense! This one said "And Finally..." on the outside and inside I made a ticket out of construction paper that said Admit One to Albuquerque. I gave him the Salt Lake city one after this and said "And That's Not All!" on the outside. I told him prior to opening the gift that there are two rules - go slowly and you can't ask any questions until you are done. So, after opening the Salt Lake city one he looked at me and said, "But I still have to ask off work...you do realize that..." to which he received a blank stare and said, "Oh, right, no questions."
So, then he opened his itineraries - I had each one wrapped with a nice bow and made an envelope to put them in (again out of construction paper). After that was a card that read, "I know what you're thinking..." and inside that was his ticket for his return trip to Milwaukee, and an explanation - I actually called his boss and asked for him to have the days off as I knew Coll couldn't go otherwise!
All in all it was a fun thing to open and though he was really tired he was excited :) I'm so glad he will be coming with me, too, as traveling alone for a week and a half would really not be fun. What he needs more than anything is a vacation, so I'm glad I could give him that!
That's all for now! I'm about to start making another batch of soap...more details to follow :)
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