Challenge Two: Birthday Madness

I love giving my friends and family nice presents and cards for their birthdays.  Unfortunately it does cost a small fortune.  Over the last year I did try to be really frugal with my gifts, without buying tat, however I still managed to spend the tidy sum of £713.96 on 35 different birthdays and special occasions throughout the year, (excluding Christmas, which is a whole other story).  Which gives me a mean average of over £20 per gift.

I am also jaded with the commercialisation of birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions such as Mothers' Day.  Unfortunately it now feels like card manufacturers have created an annual calendar of events, which they seamlessly flow one into the other and which are all must-buy occasions. I recently read an article by the daughter of an artist, who told the story about the tradition in her family to hand make cards and how personal they always were, which got me thinking.  This year I want to invest some time and energy, rather than money, into giving people lovely, thoughtful cards and presents. So...

Challenge Two is: to spend only £100 on birthday and special occasion gifts in the next 12 months.

I started today and I have to say that I can't believe that it is 6.30pm already here in Edinburgh, I have been totally absorbed in my work.  This afternoon I got started on the two birthdays which are looming on the horizon, my brother-in-law's and a really good old schoolfriend.  Both of these birthdays are normally card-only occasions, so I set to work. 

I am lucky in that I have a lot of craft materials stocked up, with a desk full of acrylic paints, watercolour pencils, ribbons, bits of material, stickers, card and so on.  So I didn't need to buy anything, but I have to say that a lot of the things I have collected up over the years have been free, such as ribbon and ties from used gift wrapping, buttons from old clothes and so on, cards and pictures that I have received over the years, so it needn't cost a fortune. 

I decided to paint a card for my brother-in-law and I am quite pleased with the results.  I haven't been painting for very long, so I hope I will get better the more I practise, and making this card today certainly gave me the impetus to get going and get the paints out.  It may look weird on screen, but in real-life the squirrel is quite endearing.

The other card I made used up some pressed flowers that I have had drying for about two years!  I am less pleased with my efforts here, but again I am sure I will get more inspiration as I go along.

And an added bonus was that while rummaging in my desk for craft materials I found some old second class stamps which I had forgotten I had, so my cards cost me absolutely zero pence to make and post.  A good start!

The key to keeping this up will be planning ahead to give myself enough time to make things.  I really enjoyed my afternoon and hopefully the thought is appreciated by the two recipients, and they don't just think I have lost the plot.  I will let you know!