Way Awesomer Anniversary List for Awesome People

 

Our second anniversary is coming up soon and while looking up the traditional gift for year 2 (cotton, for the record) we decided the list was stupid. I don't want ivory and gemstones and crystal and china. Borrring. It IS kinda nice having a roadmap so we don't have to think up something from scratch, though, so we decided to make our own list. We kept a few things from the original that we liked, and filled in the blanks.

1. Paper
Honestly we just kept this one because we'd already done it. But it's a good one! Books! Concert or travel tickets! Comics! Weird paper jewelry!

2. Dead Things
Okay I know that sounds weird, but bear with me here. "Dead things" can encompass anything from a dinosaur t-shirt to a bacon-of-the-month club to pressed flowers. Maybe a super cool old fossil! Or a new pair of leather boots! It's not the most vegan friendly of categories but you can certainly pull it off if you're creative... I mean technically vegetables are dead when you eat them, right?

3. Glitter
I almost left this one out because I thought it'd be hard to find something for Travis, but he pointed out that I can totally cheat and just cover something he likes in glitter (like, say, a bottle of bourbon.) There are some legit dude-friendly glitter gifts though, like guitars, upholstered stuff, fancy watches... It'll be an easy year for him, because he could straight up just get me glitter and I'd be thrilled.

4. Light
Twinkle lights! Lamps! Photography! A trip to the Arctic Circle in winter!

5. Leather
Self explanatory.

6. Wool
Yarn, sweaters, whole actual sheep... I hope to hint my way to an authentic Pendleton blanket. (In my head, we are much richer 4 years from now.) Will also accept a sheep, though. And don't forget all the cool things they're doing with felt these days.

7. Sugar
Tasty things of all sorts! Negative points if you choose to interpret it as "give me some sugar" and show up giftless, naked, and affectionate. That's a cop out. Unless you're covered in sweet edibles.

8. Vinyl
Could be records, could be rad diner-style booth benches, could be (if you're into it) cheap faux-leather fetishwear. I'll probably go with records.

9. Living Things
Okay I'll admit I timed this one for about the time we'll be in the puppy market again...but it could totally mean houseplants or a coopful of chickens or a tree for the yard or a batch of sea monkeys...

10. Beverage
Booze. Tea. Coffee. Chocolate. Lots of fun to be had!

15. Meat
.... yeah pretty much just meat. Trav's contribution, obvs.

20. Wood
SO MANY GREAT THINGS ARE MADE WITH WOOD. Furniture, sculpture, books (technically!), trees...

25. Metal
SO MANY GREAT THINGS ARE MADE WITH METAL. Jewelry, of course. Kitchen stuff. Appliances. Electronics. Shiny new cars.

30. Tattoos
I think it's funny to force our 55 year old selves to get tattoos.

50. Drugs
Trav begged 'cause he thinks he's hilarious. I figured, hey. We're 75. Drugs will probably be a very important part of our lives anyway.


Any more ideas? Buck tradition, I say! Get stuff you actually want!

Christoween Part 2: Gift wrap

I'm kinda weird, I love wrapping gifts. I spend way too much time and money on it. I grew up in a home where we were very "anything goes" with Christmas decorations- no Martha Stewarty tree themes, lots of mismatched giftwrap and bows and ribbon. Which is great and fun, and I think if Travis had his way we'd definitely go that route, but now that I get to do Christmas "my way" I think I'm rebelling by getting all matchy-matchy about it and all ;-) I like Martha Stewart, dammit.

(It helps that I don't have kids, playing Santa would probably wear out the best of my intentions.)

Anyway! Giftwrap!

I went with kraft-brown, black, white, gray, and little touches of orange, especially in the ribbons. I had some tiny old paper "luggage tags" or whatever you call them, so used those for names. There are some mini unbreakable ornaments on a few of them.

 

 The stamp set I used for my wedding place cards just happened to have a pumpkin! Those labels are leftover from our invitations, too. Here are the insides (sorry, cell pic):

 

 

 I would never put a subtle ribbon cross of St Peter on a child's Christmas present. What would make you say such a thing? (I didn't really mean to, it just happened.) 

 

Travis let me decorate my own presents (he wrapped them) because he knows how psychotic I get about these things. (Um, so, of course I used a weird mesh tube thing that I didn't actually want to part with because I have crazy dreams of putting it on a hat. Heh.)

By the time I got to my sister's gifts, I was out of useful bags and ended up putting them in these weird planters I got from Ikea awhile ago. They're cool, but the bottoms are rounded which is a wee bit impractical.

And then there's this, my pièce de résistance:

 Fuck yeah spider bow.

 

Nevermind the tape...I was worried hot glue would melt the weird gummy-rubber. (And obviously those are the only two options.)

 (Bonus shot:

   

 That's our weird faux fur tree skirt, peeking through... and the beginnings of a REAL spiderweb. After being up for like a week. Ridiculous.)


PS, Happy Apocalypse! If you missed it, there's a sale on over at my other blog.