“If the word is the act of love, I can love you in more ways than you can ever imagine.” Love in any language sounds sweet, it becomes sweeter when expressed in many ways, but expressing your love in thousand different Languages will surely blow his/her mind away.

Fostering love: The idea behind the gift

From Bengali Aamee tuma ke bhalo baashi to Farsi Doset daram to German Ich liebe dich to Gujarati Hoo thunay prem karoo choo to French Je t’aime and Je t’adore to Dutch Ik hou van jou to Slovak Lu’bim to Yiddish Ikh hob dikh lib, each phrase speaks volume about your love. The idea is to create a custom t-shirt with a heart filled with I love you written in 1000 (or as many as you can, but at least 100) different languages. This give will give him/her more than one reason to believe how much you love him/her, and will remember it every time he/she stands in front of a mirror wearing the t-shirt you gifted.

Creating this super gift is not difficult, and it will be more fun than you think. To make this gift, you will need a pre-shrunk t-shirt, preferably white, a collection of I love you in different languages, a little bit of knowledge of illustration, and enthusiasm to see this work through.

Finding love: Research & explanation

Begin with researching the Internet for different ways to say I love you. Just typing “I love you in different languages” in Google will fetch you the result you are looking for. Use Microsoft Excel to make a list: in one column write the name of the language, and in the second column write the way I love you is written in that language. Keep this list handy.

In explaining this custom gift idea, I have used a plain white t-shirt, but you can take the creative liberty and experiment with color and design. You need to keep in mind that the text written on the t-shirt should contrast with the color of the t-shirt. For example: if you choose a black color t-shirt then you can consider writing the “I love yous” in florescent green, white or neon colors. If you want, you can play with the design as well. In making this gift, you are limited only by your imagination.

The next step in the process is to illustrate the design you want to put on the t-shirt.  You can either use pencil, eraser, sharpener, scale and paper to draw the design concept that you have in your mind or you can use illustration software like Adobe Illustrator, or Corel Draw to get the output.

Crafting Love: Creating the custom t-shirt Design

Begin with taking measurement of the chest-area of the t-shirt. For the measurement you can use a t-shirt of the recipient. Mark the measurement on a sheet of paper, in case you are using paper and pencil, or create a new page of the size you got from the measurement if you are using software to do the illustration work. This step should be followed by creating a wireframe that will be filled with the “I love yous”. You have two option, either to create a big heart with a 2.5-pixel border and fill the “I love yous” in it. The second option is to make any primary shape and write all the “I love yous” in it using black font. Make a second layer on top of it, and draw a heart with a 1.50-pixel border on it. Keep the fill part of the heart blank and paint the border with cherry-red color.

Now, select all the “I love yous” that falls within the boundary of the heart, and change its color to red. You can also delete one or two “I love yous” from the center of the heart, and write a personalized message to the recipient. If you want, you can use a different color to make this message prominent, or else you can write the message using same font and same color. This will maintain the subtlety of the message, which can also be very powerful.

Getting a custom t-shirt printed is not a big deal, nowadays. If you couldn’t find a good quality custom t-shirt in your locality then search the Internet, and you will get many options to choose from. There are online services that not only print custom design on a standard t-shirt, but they also give you an option to design t-shirt from scratch for printing.

The lovey-dovey wedding idea

The super gift idea that I am sharing here will make the marriage of your son/daughter/friend not only personal but very, very memorable. I am asking you to personalize his or her wedding by distributing bride’s as well as groom’s favorite candies and cookies among the guests attending the marriage, along with a note stating the sweet, little story behind the candies and cookies distribution. If you want, you can also get one childhood photo of the bride as well as of the groom printed on the cover-side of the note.

This activity will not only involve everyone present at the party, but it will also make the marriage a memorable super event. How many marriages do you know of that uses such innovative technique to personalize the wedding? The point is: do this and the bride and the groom will be taken over by the true joyful emotion at the sight of their guests indulging in the secret fantasy of bride and groom’s childhood.

The wedding planner

Creating this custom gift is fairly simple, and can be done with a very little effort. You should be extremely cautious while collecting information about the candies and cookies he or she as well as his or her would-be better half liked when they were kids as you would not like to disclose your plans beforehand.

Once you got the information you were seeking, the next step is to procure the cookies and candies in sufficient quantity. To get the idea about how many cookies and candies you are going to need, you have to find the following:

• The number of guests who will be present at the wedding.
• How many candies and cookies will you be giving to each guest?

After getting the numbers right, it is time to write the story behind the candies and cookies distribution. You should use calligraphy or handwriting font to write the story. Write the story using a flowery language, and keep the story short. The size of the note should not be more than 5 X 4 inches. You can also use decorative borders, if you wish to adorn the note.

You will need a page designing and lay out making software like Quark Express, or Adobe Indesign to design the note. You can also use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe illustrator, or Corel Draw for this purpose.

On the cover-side of the note, put one picture each of the bride and the groom clicked when they were kids or may be toddler. If you want to add a headline or a caption to the image, feel free to do that. You will need   Adobe Photoshop or Gimp (open source) to optimize the images for the note.

The wedding gift

How are you planning to distribute it? C’mon, don’t tell me that you just planning to hand the candies, cookies and note over to your guests! Kidding, right? Jokes apart, packaging and the delivery of the super gift is as important as the gift itself.

For packaging, you can use a small box made of pristine white or elegant black leather. On top-face of the box, get the name of the bride and the groom engraved along with the salutation for the receiver. Use thin, golden or silver font for the purpose. Put the candies and cookies in the box, keep the note on top of them, and hand the box over to every guest before the ritual starts.

Finding a box manufacturer will not be very difficult. Search the Internet for the companies that specialize in gift wrapping, or you can also contact companies that make small boxes for watches. Ask for their quotes, and go with the one who offers the most competitive price.

The custom blanket Idea

When we marry, we have many things to take care of. We are starting a new family, so we need to buy a number of small and big things for daily uses. Hence, I am suggesting here a custom gift that not only will protect them, keep the newly-wed couple warm, and create a cozy environment for them in the favorite corner of their room, but it will also strike one important thing out from the couple’s to-buy list. This way you will help the newly-wed couple in starting a new life. A blanket with a personalized message woven in the corner is the gift I am suggesting you to give to your friend, friend’s son/ daughter or, family friend’s son/daughter on his or her wedding. It will help them in starting a new life, and this super gift will last many years that essentially means you will not be forgotten for years to come.

Personalizing the blanket

The process of creating a personalized blanket starts with writing the personal message you want to put at the corner of the blanket. Write a small message wishing the couple happy married life and sign the message with your name’s initials. Keep the initials at the corner and use a very small font to write them. Make the initials almost invisible. Do not make the initials visible from distance. How many people do you know who will like to use any gift that has the name (s) of the giver prominently visible from a distance?

While crafting the personal message, always remember, the custom gift you are giving will be used for many years, so an attempt should be made to make the message timeless. The meaning of the message should not lose relevance after a passage of time.

Once the message is ready, it’s time to shop for the blanket. The size, design and the quality of the blanket depends upon your taste and budget. If you want your personalized gift to be of some practical value for the recipient, buy the blanket that suits the recipient taste. You do not need to go very far stretching your budget. You can do this within your budget as well. All you need to do is some research.

The next step in the creation of this super gift is printing or weaving and stitching of the personal message at the corner of the blanket. As you guessed, I am suggesting here two options: either you can get the message woven by a professional embroidery maker at the corner of the blanket, or you can get it printed on a 4X4 inches leather piece, or velvet cloth, etc.

The look and feel of the output will depend upon the quality of the embroidery maker for the former alternative and the quality of printing company for the latter option. Finding neither a good quality embroidery maker will be difficult, nor will finding a good reliable company to make a squarish label be nerve-wracking.

Do not forget to ask question. Ask as many questions as you want to ask while purchasing blanket or shopping for a professional or a company to get the message part created and affixed to the blanket. Get a nice wrap for the super gift and a broad smile for your lips before entering the marriage party.