Paper Anniversary Gift

One month ago, my husband and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. As most of you probably know, the first anniversary is the “paper anniversary”. Because Zac was in Ranger School, we spent our special day apart. We had to wait until his first graduation pass to exchange gifts. Zac had limited resources to gifts while in Ranger School, yet he still managed to knock it out of the park. He wrote an amazingly heartfelt poem and read it to me when he got home.

I however, had ALL the time in the world to work on my gift since I didn’t have to worry about him coming home and seeing me working on it, so I knew mine would have to be good. I completed his gift as one of my weekly projects but didn’t post it because I wanted him to see it in person before he saw it on social media.

Here’s what I came up with:

Supplies:

• Large Piece of Sturdy Paper (I used poster board)
• Large Piece of Sturdy Paper in Contrasting Color
• Frame
• Spray Paint (optional)
• Staple Gun and Staples
• X-acto Knife
• Mod Podge

Directions:

1. Choose a picture to work from.
2. Draw (or trace if you don’t think you can draw) the picture to the size you want on your darker colored paper (I used black paper). If you want a large picture and you feel the need to trace it, you will need to blow the picture up in order to do so.
3. Cut the lighter piece of paper to fit in or behind your frame.
4. Using an X-acto knife, cut around the outside edges of the subjects of your picture. Since my picture was a wedding picture, I also decided to cut out all of the white accents, such as: my dress, my veil, my tiara, Zac’s bow tie and parts of his tux.
5. Once you have all the pieces cut away, glue the darker piece of paper to the lighter piece using the Mod Podge. (Be careful about dragging the glue across the darker paper, it may smear.)
6. Let dry.
7. Once dry, insert into frame. I didn’t use a traditional frame with glass, so I stapled the paper to the frame with a staple gun.

I worked long and hard on that gift. I cut until my fingers hurt. So i was extremely happy when Zac loved it enough to want to hang it in our bedroom where we would see it every night. I thought I chose a gift that fit the “paper” theme that hadn’t be over used or too terribly common. I guess I better start figuring out how I’m gonna top that for next year!