Valentine Gift DIY

So let's start with a disclaimer...
You may not know this about me, but in almost every circumstance, no matter what, I always do something wrong. Usually not horribly wrong...just slightly wrong, in a way that makes people shake their heads and feel a little sorry for me.

As an example:
This is a lovely rose that someone at work gave me for Valentine's day.

Here is that same rose after I set it on my dashboard and my heater fried it.

Not a completely horrible mistake...just a little tragic...and a perfect example of how I mess up everything a little bit.

So with that disclaimer in mind, here is a tutorial on the (slightly cheesy) Valentine's day gift that I made for my boyfriend.

52 Things I Love About You

Step 1: Start with an ordinary deck of cards.

Step 2: Using a hole punch, punch two holes in each card. (They're going to fit together like a book)

Step 3: Using some fancy edged scissors, I cut out little squares to be glued to the front of each card.

Step 4: Write one thing that you love about the other person on each paper. (52 things, as there are 52 cards obviously)

Make sure you mix it up. Some of the things I wrote were serious, some were silly, and some of them were even inside jokes that would just sound completely ridiculous to everyone else. You can print these off of the computer if you want, but I chose to hand write them because it's a little more personal...also I'm lazy, and my printer is all the way downstairs.

Step 5: Glue one paper to the front of each card. 

(This is the step where my disclaimer comes in)

Take a good look at the photo. Can you see where I went wrong?

Yes. That's right. I glued the papers on upside down. Normally there's no up or down side to cards...but there is if you've already punched the holes in them...and books are supposed to be read with the pages going from left to right. 

So in this case I only noticed after I had already glued together an entire suit, and the glue was too dry to pull the papers off without ripping the cards...so I just went with it. Brandon knows me well enough, he should expect that any gift made by me will have something wrong with it. 

And anyway, in some countries books are read with the pages going from right to left (she said to make herself feel like less of a failure)

Step 6: So after gluing on all of the "reasons I love you" just take some book rings and hook all of the cards together. You can do the cards in order or randomly it doesn't matter.

I used the Jokers for the front and back covers. 

So there you have it.

Other than the slight mishap with the book turning out backwards, I don't think it turned out too bad as a last minute gift. 

I didn't even have to spend any money on it.

The End

P.S. Maybe some day I'll keep my word and actually catch up on that photo challenge (honestly though, don't hold your breath)

Road trip

I know I haven't posted in about a week, but there's good reason for that. I went on a road trip with my boyfriend, and one of our friends up to the mountains to visit my brother, and my cousins. (Our friend conveniently lives in that area as well) I left late afternoon on Friday, and just got back last night. It was a lot of driving, but I had fun. So as usual, let me see if I can just sum it up, as opposed to going on and on.

Friday: Drove for 6 hours. Planned on stopping half way at a Chinese restaurant that I love going to every time I'm in that area. Missed my exit. No Chinese food :(
Stayed the night at a friend's house about an hour and a half away from my cousin's so that he could spend some time with his family.

Saturday: Left my boyfriend and friend to have some guy time and enjoy their Saturday hockey game. (my boyfriend was not happy with the results of the game) Drove to my cousin's house where my brother, cousins and I went into town and enjoyed a nice pizza. Stayed the night at their house. Played cards, ate snacks, and had some good old fashioned family time.

Sunday: Drove back to my friend's house to pick the two of them up. Returned to my cousin's house to pick him up. Drove an hour to my brother's girlfriend's college. (an all girl school much to the delight of my friend.) Officially met my brother's girlfriend, and had a really lovely lunch at a tiny little diner called Manory's. If you're ever in Troy, make sure you eat there. The staff is incredibly nice, and very interactive. (plus the food is good.) All together a very enjoyable meal. We then went back to the dorm lounge and played cards. We stayed the night at my friend's grandpa's house, where we spent the whole night playing pool in his basement/man cave.

Monday: Drove home. Didn't miss my exit this time. Drove to the Chinese restaurant. Found out that it's out of business. No Chinese food :(
When we got back home though, my boyfriend took me out for Chinese at a different place. He's sweet.

So that was my weekend. I didn't take very many photos over the weekend, but here are a couple from my trip.

Mountains. Not the best photo as it was taken from my car window.

My very musical cousin playing his guitar for me

My brother's crazy cat. Her name is Demon, and her eyes always look like this.

My cousin is a Cat-whisperer.