21st Birthday Box

kiss_me_now9

It's my OHs 21st just before christmas and I wanted to give him something a little bit different that's definitely a birthday gift, not a christmas/birthday gift as he definitely has 'christmas birthday syndrome' and is forever being bought a present that acts as both

I meant to do this for my best mates 21st in June but didn't get round to it now I want to start this early and get everything sorted but I've hit a wall at thinking for ideas at about 5... He doesn't wear jewellery and whilst he loves sweets I'd like to keep those to a minimum as he eats them all the time and I'm trying to get him to be healthier : He doesn't really have any hobbies atm and the only sport he was into whilst he was at uni was fencing, which he doesn't follow or play any more. His main hobbies are smoking and drinking with friends (I swear to god, this makes him sound horrid but he is such a lovely guy and the love of my life :cool:)

I know this is going to be a bit of a pricey one but I'd like to keep it under £25 - that's my aim anyway! So I need a few bits and bobs that are either under £1 or I can make for under £1, as a few of the things I've planned already come between £1 and £2.

Anyone done this before or have any ideas? I'm fairly crafty, don't mind giving stuff a go BUT I live in a really small town where there are just a handful of shops so actually getting stuff can be hard. We don't have a Wilkos/Tesco/Asda here.

Owain_Moneysaver

You could get some newspaper headlines and images from the day he was born throughout history (Google 'on this day'), arrange them round a baby photo (ask his mum) and get them printed on a giant fridge magnet (car door magnet from vistaprint) or t-shirt - arrange the images on your PC into one jpeg so you only pay one vistaprint upload fee.

If you printed off the same image collage to make wrapping paper then you could wrap all the other gifts with that and that would make them definite birthday gifts.

Aldi have a cordless drill coming up on 27 Oct for £19.99. Every 21-year-old man should have a power drill especially if you want him to put up shelves. And if he doesn't have any hobbies it's about time he got one.

kiss_me_now9

Trust me, I've been trying to get him to join some kind of hobby for the last 6 months! Maybe now I need to be really pushing him, lol

I already have a baby photo, love that idea - will definitely have to incorporate that somewhere.

cazpumpkin

for my other halfs valentine day but it would work for a birthday i bought red paper hearts and wrote out 365 reasons why i loved him , plus love quotes , poems etc , that was hard work ! i put them all in a glass jar and put some red curling ribbon round the lid with a heart gift tag

for daughters 21st i got a keepsake box and filled it with items to represent other things eg a a bouncy ball to bounce back from things, a packet of rolos cos i would give you my last one etccc, i forget what the concept is called as i got most of my ideas from google and ebay, you write out a list to go with the items in the box so they know whats what, i finished with a piece of a jigsaw glued into the inside of the lid centre and the final line of the list said something like " a jigsaw as without you my life wouldnt be complete " anyway i know it all sounds rather stupid and sickly lol but it is my daughters most treasured possession

those ideas cost pennies but a LOT of effort to compile but very little in the way of expense, time consuming looking for small items and just ONE of them but i gave it a go

have also made OH cupcakes made up a batch of icing which i piped on in swirls with icing syringe so it looked like the ones u see in shops and not flat icing spread on and then popped a love heart sweet onto the top of each one

hope these help, they didnt cost much just time

just remembered i also had a white t shirt printed for her saying made in 1991 the year she was born which was well received, i know on ebay various websites you can upload a pic and have it printed onto tshirts and mugs too