Homemade Birthday Card

Well, David’s birthday is Saturday and while he is at work, I made him his birthday card. Actually, it’s not so much the card as an envelope. David and I have sworn to each other that we will not give cards. We see them as kind of pointless bits of paper that will only make us feel guilty when we go to throw them away (or better yet recycle them), which will need to be done at some point. If you make/write/design cards for a living, I don’t mean to insult, we just have no place for them.

So, I made an envelope. I’m giving David tickets to DMB for later Saturday night. I have a whole surprise trip to Memphis planned for this weekend. I’m stoked, and he’s completely confused.

I made the envelope out of blue cardstock from a template that I got here. I assembled it with a glue stick, cut a rectangle out of some lizard paper I had lying about, used a scrap from cutting out the envelope, and a white cardstock scrap, and a pen to finish off the card. I assembled it all with my Xyron sticker-maker (you could use a glue stick), and VOILA!

Back View

Front View

It took about 10 minutes (would’ve taken less if Lily had stopped yelling at me from her exersaucer). It was hard for me not to embellish but I had to keep it simple because he’s a 20-something year old man, not a 14 year old girl. The tickets fit snuggly inside and I packaged his birthday present for probably about 10 cents. Considering the price this weekend, including those tickets, is costing me, I’m crazy excited about that 10 cents. Woot woot!

It’s super fast, super fun, and SUPER cheap to make your own cards and envelopes, and they don’t have to be hard. This is my testament.

My Family Organization Site Addiction

Ok, for my first post, I would like to introduce everyone to my FAVORITE website. This site is amazing. It is a family organizational website that is free for a basic membership. Now, you might say that you’ve seen these fam. org. websites before, and, I know, I’ve tried them all, but I love this one. It has a calendar with color-coded tabs for every member in your family and, unlike some other similar websites, adding events is super easy. There is a huge list section, which is like crack to me, to-do message board, place to put pictures, and even a blog. I used the blog most recently when David was in Costa Rica and I didn’t get to talk to him often. I would write all the cute things Lily did during the day and he could log on in Costa Rica and read about what we did all day when he couldn’t call. Another favorite feature is Family Library section that allows you to host files. I use it instead of USB drives sometimes because I don’t have to worry about carrying it around. Anyway, I think it’s clear that I LOVE this site, and you should give it a whirl. I’m sure you’ll like it too.