Creative Present Ideas #1

Perhaps you experience the same sentiment as me, every time a birthday, Christmas, important anniversary, Valentine's Day or other gift giving occasion approaches...

What on earth do I get my boyfriend for a present?!

If your boyfriend/significant other is anything like mine, then he will already possess everything in the world that he could ever want. Every time he wants something, he just goes out and buys it immediately. I know right...how selfish of him!! :P

So basically every gift giving occasion involves a lot of thought and effort on my part. And a lot of googling along the lines of "dear google please help me find a creative/romantic/funny/sentimental gift for my boyfriend, please please help me ahhh...".

Also to make it even more difficult for myself, I always tend to include a lot of elements in every present - a joke one, a sentimental one, a more expensive one etc. I usually end up buying about 5 or so presents for every occasion! I've kind of shot myself in the foot with this though, as we've been together nearly three years and I'm fast running out of ideas!

So I've decided to create a series of present ideas to help you all out with this ridiculous problem that will never stop occurring as long as you stay together.

Present Idea For Boyfriend #1:(this would also work well for a friend too)

I wanted to get Rich (the boyfriend) some sort of cool box thing to put all of his man things in (cufflinks/tie clips/guitar picks etc.) I decided on making him one as I thought I would gain points for the effort involved. And this is what I ended up creating:

So as you can see it is a wooden box, with printed out pictures of his favourite things stuck to it. I purchased the box from an art store (Riot Art and Craft) for approximately $10. Then I searched for all of his favourite things, printed them, then stuck them to the lid. After that I coated the lid with watered down craft glue, as it is transparent and creates a glossy sealed surface over the pictures (it goes on white but then dries clear). 

Inside the box there are 6 sections. I lifted up the segments and placed blue felt below, so the inside of the box had a soft base for all of his items to sit on and be protected.



So I think this present fits the thoughtful/creative/personalised/useful bill, and it was very well received! And great fun to make!

In case you would prefer to buy a similar male trinket box, I thought these leather ones from Fossil were also perfect. My preference was the Dark Brown, however they are fairly expensive at $249.

Let me know what you think of this idea, and if you have other suggestions for great boyfriend presents! Keep an eye out for future present suggestions as part of this series.