This is going to be fun. The super gift we are about to discuss here will drive you down the memory lane to the destination, rather, to the source from where everything started. It has been many years since, and lots of memory got piled up; some sweet and some not so sweet. Take the opportunity presented by this special occasion to inject again the freshness of a honeymooner to your relationship.

The gift idea we are talking about is quite simple, and I warn you, do not let the deceptive simplicity of the idea cast you down. This gift will be very powerful in inducing the right emotion from the recipient. The super gift will not only make her day, but it will be with her for really long time.

I am talking about gifting a lovely satin bed sheet. A satin bed sheet with a custom print made from the photographs that will convey the story of the wonderful time you spent together on your romantic honeymoon. I am suggesting you to use bed sheet & the accompanying pillow covers as a medium to convey the very first chapter of your love story. Every night, the bed sheet will make you relive the moments on which time has put a thick layer.

Great for Wife or Husband

Although, this gift has been conceived with female partners (wives) in mind; this can be gifted to the male partners (husbands) as well.

This gift idea is designed for the couples who are married for at least 4-5 years. You can give this super gift on the day of your marriage anniversary, may be on the 5^th marriage anniversary or the later one.

Anatomy of the super gift

I am happy that till now I have been able to hold your attention. Without wasting any more moment, we will move forward, and learn how to make this Super Gift. To make this super gift, you will need a plain satin bed sheet, some sweet honeymoon photographs, a little knowledge of Photoshop or any image enhancing software (click here to see a list of photo enchancing software), and the willingness to give your love a precious gift.

We start with selecting a good quality, light color bed sheet, preferably white. The second step leads us to our digital photo album. If you did not click pictures using digital camera, you can also use printed photograph; just scan each of them on at least 300 dpi, and enhance the photographs in Photoshop. If you still have the negatives of the picture then I will suggest you to get the negative scanned using a good quality negative photo scanner.

Start selecting the images you want to put on the bed sheet, but before doing that decide a theme for the bed sheet. Depending upon your personal taste, you can either choose pictures of cozy and intimate moments, or the time you two spent riding a boat, watching the beautiful sunset, walking hand in hand, screaming on a joyride etc., or you can consider using a blend of the two. I am not setting any rule here because this is your gift, and you need to put your own feeling in this super gift.

Arranging the selected pictures will follow the picture selection process. Use the picture that you feel was the defining moment of your relationship in the center of the bed sheet. For example, you can use a picture of your first kiss, your first day on honeymoon, your engagement or the time when you proposed her at the center.

Make a montage using this picture in the center, and arrange rest of the pictures thematically around it. You can also add scanned copies of greeting cards, love letters or the digital version of each one of them in the montage. Use a clear handwriting font to retype the love letter you sent or received through e-mails, e-cards that you sent or received, or the transcripts of sweet chats that you had. Based on your preference, you can also add some design elements to the montage. The central picture of this montage will be quite big. It should take up the whole central area. Anything in excess of 20″X24″ will do.

Once the montage is ready send it and the bed sheet you selected for printing. Be careful in selecting whom you are going to give the responsibility to do the printing work (click here to see a list of the best bed clothes printing company). The printer who specializes in creating custom printed bed sheets or cloths should only be chosen for creating this super gift. If you don’t know one already then search the Internet and business directories for such printers. Finding a printer can be a bit challenging, but this will be worth the effort.

Who can Give this Super gift?

A husband and also a wife can be the one who should consider giving this super gift.

Other Occasion

This super gift can also be given on valentine day, but the valentine day should not be the one that comes immediately after the marriage. Wait for at least 2-3 years before this super gift can spell its magic.

Custom magazine cover demystified

It has been many years since you have met for the first time, exchanged smiles, looked eyes into eyes, and then there was a perfect Kodak moment. The time stopped, sun dimmed, the stars glittered throwing away brilliant light, and the wind blew lovingly. It was a perfect Kodak moment. What if you could freeze the time there? What if you could make it last longer? What if you could…?

The super gift idea we are going to share will make “your perfect Kodak moment “eternal. This gift is neither for her, nor for you, but this super gift is both of you. We are asking you to gift her a custom made magazine cover for this anniversary. She will be more than delighted to see this gift as well as the sparkle in your eyes and smile on your face.

Custom magazine cover explained

To create this custom magazine cover you will need a working knowledge of image editing software like Adobe Photoshop or Gimp (open source), and page designing software like Adobe PageMaker or Quark Express. To come up with creative lines for the cover, you will need free-flying imagination, and a deep desire to gift your wife a highly personalized creative gift.

The first step in the process of creating this personalized gift is to search for an ideal magazine cover on which you will base the layout and the design of your super gift. Create a base layout for the magazine cover by putting appropriate place-holders for the title, date, month, year, issue, volume, price, featuring attractions, titles of imaginary articles, and the cover image.

Now it’s the time to find an appropriate picture for the cover image. I will suggest you to use the portrait picture that was clicked on the day of your marriage or engagement. Use any image editing software to remove the background from the selected cover image. The image editing software will further be used to optimize the cover image for printing.

The next step is to think of a name for the magazine. Show your creativity and come up with an attractive name that should not lose its charm after a year or two “Our Wedding”, “Marital Bliss”, “Wedding Bells”, “Big Day” etc could be used.

The date, month and year of your wedding should be filled in the appropriate placeholders. Volume for this magazine cover will be ‘one’, and issue will also be ‘one’. In the placeholder for price write ‘priceless’ and besides that write ‘not for sale’. Write ‘Fifth Marriage Anniversary’ or ‘Five Blissful Years’ in the main attraction feature placeholder. Your love message for her will become names of the imaginary articles. An imaginary page number should be placed beneath each imaginary article (love message). Choose a background of your liking and give the final touch to the magazine cover.

Custom magazine creation

Getting this custom gift printed will not be difficult, nor will be framing; still, you need to be careful in choosing the printer and the photo framer. Finding a good quality printer and a photo framer will not be difficult. Enter the appropriate keywords, and any of the major search engines will fetch a huge list containing names, addresses and websites of printers as well as photo framers. Ask for the price-list and samples from each of them. Ask each of them to send you printed samples.

The size of the magazine cover should be at least 20X24 inches, if you want it to be visible from a distance.

Lovey-dovey idea

This gift is designed for busy professional who often hears complains about his busy schedules, and about not having enough time for his wife. This gift will tell his wife how wrong she was in accusing him of not having time for her. The idea is to gift her one soft, red heart-shaped box full of small heart-shaped cards with personalized messages written on each of them.

Creating the super gift

The first step in the process of creating this super gift is to find a heart-shaped box. You can easily find an elegant, heart-shaped box in any gift store near you, or you can even scan through the online retailers like Amazon, eBay etc. for the box. I will suggest you to choose a red box with velvety or satin upholstery. Make sure the box has enough sponge or foam padding to give the box soft feeling.

Now, it’s time to write personalized messages, but before that make one hundred small hearts of equal sizes. If you find it difficult to make one hundred hearts of equal sizes then follow the instruction given below:

1.       Take a thin sheet of metal (Steel), and make a heart-shaped stencil out of it.

2.       Sandpaper the edges so that it becomes smooth.

3.       Take a slightly thinner cardboard or chart paper (the one on which you did your school projects).

4.       Put this stencil on the piece of paper.

5.       Take a sharp blade or knife.

6.       Move the blade around the edges of the heart-shaped stencil, and repeat it until you make one hundred hearts.

Note: You should use different colors of cardboards to add colors to the super gift.

The final step: start writing one personalized message each on each heart-shaped card. You should write the message yourself as it should look personal. Give an account of the time you spent together. Talk about those little chit-chats you had over cups of tea; about solitary walks through the jungle; about sitting under banyan tree in a sunny day; about walking on the road in rain, etc. These things will have more profound effect than the mere “I missed you,” “Tight Hug,” “I Love You,” etc. A message like the one suggested above not only say how much you love her, but it also says how much you cherish the time you spent together. She is going to love you for this.

You can get the personal messages printed using handwriting or calligraphy fonts, if you do not want to use a pen to write the personal messages. You can also decorate the heart-shaped cards, if you want to.

If you are planning to go for printing option then I will suggest using image editing software like Adobe Photoshop or Gimp, or illustration software like Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, or Corel Draw to create the heart-shaped cards of different colors. You can search the Internet for the heart template. The template will save your time.

Sealing the heart with a kiss

Now, it is time to put all heart-shaped cards in the big red heart-shaped box. You can also keep some candies, decorative ribbons, miniature toys etc. in the box. Put the big red heart-shaped box in a nice looking, elegant box, wrap it up and give it to her with a rose and a sweet kiss.

Custom calendar idea

As the implied description in the introductory paragraph suggests, this gift will overwhelm your girlfriend/wife. She will be taken over by the emotion, and will be searching all over for the words; instead, she will come and put her arms around your neck planting a passionate kiss on your lips. The idea is to give her a custom-made calendar using her images or the images of the most romantic moments you shared.

Creating the custom calendar

The most important skill required to create this gift is your imagination. You will also need tools like Adobe Photoshop or Gimp (open source), and Adobe Indesign or Quark Express to give a definite shape to your imagination. Start with making the layout for the calendar, but before starting the designing work, you can consider visiting the Internet, and search for the available calendar designs. The objective behind this exercise this activity is to draw inspiration from some professionally made world-class calendar. If you are a designer by profession or passion, and feel you can come up with a really innovative design then skip this step, and move to the next step.

By now, after going through a handful of professional calendars, you must have got idea about what you want to create. If you are still clueless, take a professional calendar of your choice and mimic the layout using Adobe Indesign or Quark Express. Once you are done with creating the basic layout, you should move to dig twelve most beautiful images (one each for one each month of the year) from your digital photo albums (preferably), or from your collections of printed photographs.

Scan the images using at least 300dpi resolution (the higher the resolution better will be the effect), if you have selected printed photographs. Optimize all twelve images for sizes and quality using Adobe Photoshop or Gimp.

The next step is to select the appropriate font for the calendar. If you want you can buy a commercial font, or search for the free versions. Browse through the online font directories or search the Internet to find the font suitable for the mood you want to create.

Take the layout you have created, and use the chosen font to write days, dates, months and year of the calendar. You can use your system’s calendar as a point of reference while creating the custom calendar. Now, it’s time to put images in the designated boxes. You can personalize the super gift even further by adding personal messages as captions to each of the twelve images. A romantic note each on every page of the calendar can also be placed near the bottom. You will need a different font to write the personal message and the romantic note.

Create a cover for the custom calendar using a thin translucent film. Craft a beautiful custom message like the following and write it using a golden or silver handwriting or calligraphy font:

“For my love…

…just to say, how much I love you!

…yours Coochypoo”

Final step

Getting this custom calendar printed will not be very difficult. There are many web-based printers that will help you in getting this custom gift printed. You can even search your local business directory for the printers specializing in this kind of job. Ask for samples and rates, and go with the one who does the best job at the most competitive price. Always remember, this gift is for your love so quality should come first not the price. She will love you for this.

Personalized gift idea

You can provide many reasons, if “why do you give a gift” question is asked, but each one of us will at least agree when I say, we gift because we care for the recipient, or at least we want to convey that we care for them. The super gift I am suggesting here will do exactly that. It will tell your beloved how much you care for her, and to what length you can go for her. I am asking you to make her birthday special for her by personalizing her environs. Make her feel special and pampered today.

Personalizing her surroundings

You will not need many tools to create this super gift. All you will need is lots of time and love for your wife. The idea is to make your presence felt on her birthday despite the fact that you are 500 miles away from her fulfilling your official duty. Word of caution: Do not let your plan leak out. If she gets to know about your intention, the fun of giving this gift will be gone. Surprise is the main ingredient. You have to perform as an undercover gifting agent. Take sufficient time in your hand to make her birthday special. You can give this gift even if you are with her, in the city.

Start with morning, and make a list of things she typically does after waking up. See what all you can modify. If she wakes up and goes directly to the bathroom to wash her face, a surprise should be waiting for her near the bathroom’s wash basin. A message like, “Good morning honey, you look beautiful today. Happy birthday! A tight hug!” could be placed there. If her second step is to fetch water from refrigerator, a rose with your message should be waiting there to greet her good morning. If this step is followed by going to kitchen for tea, a card, or just a message saying how much you miss her tea today should be placed beneath the tea container.

Make a list of the work she does in the afternoon, evening and night; at office, at home and see what all you can customize. Do not rush to wish her happy birthday yet, let the gift culminate up to a very warm happy birthday in the night. You should not forget to customize her cell phone ring tone, alarm clock, landline’s ringtone, and also leave a warm message in the answering machine preprogrammed to play when she leaves for work. The car she drives should have an I love you card waiting on the driving seat, and her music player should also play your message followed by her favorite music (or the music that has a romantic value for both of you) once she turns the ignition on.

Send flowers to her office and a big cake to your home in the evening. Ask her friends to send her your love, when she reaches office. You can also ask her cell phone company to call her and greet her, and to play her favorite tune after calling her. Arrange for sweet, lovely message as well. You can buy a short messaging pack and ask the seller to send her some beautiful messages at sporadic intervals. This custom gift will keep her happy and entertained throughout the day. She will feel, you are right there, beside her, all day, despite your being out of town on business.

Her day should culminate on your calling her, just after she enters home and sees the cake. Call her and just say, “Happy Birthday”. It will do the magic, her eyes will become moist, her voice will quiver, and her heart will be over joyous.

You can also think of installing 2-3 cameras one each in the bedroom, kitchen and living room to record her expressions and reactions. Preprogram the camera based on her daily routine, and watch the recoding with her once you are back. On the cost of repeating I must say: surprise is the key element of this personalized super gift. If the plan is leaked, the super gift will not have the desired effect.

This personalized romantic gift consists of two parts: form and substance (read content). I will begin with discussing substance (content) of this super gift and will move forward towards describing the form.

Writing letter (substance)

More than anything, what’s the content of the message delivered in the bottle will matter more to your girl; hence, you need to cherry-pick the words for the personal message. In this case, focus more on the depth of the message and the eloquence of the writing style, instead of focusing on the length of the message.

The core essence of the message could be a plain heart-felt “I love you”, or it could be “I wanted to say how much I missed you since yesterday evening, when we last met”. Do not make the letter look run of the mill. Letter should not imitate the mechanical phrases written on any greeting card. Make the letter personal as if you have poured your heart into every word written there.

You can use an old-looking paper or a parchment paper to write the personal message, and if you wish you can carefully burn the edge on any one side of the scroll to give the letter an authentic “old world” and “shipwrecked” feel. You can even submerge it into yellowish muddy water to give it a more authentic look.

Crafting bottle (form)

The bottle in which the message will be delivered is not only a delivery vehicle in this case, but it is an integral part of the message. The beauty of the bottle will express how much effort you put in to create this beautiful super gift; hence you should carefully choose the shape of the bottle you will use to deliver the message. Craft a short but elegant personal message and get it laser engraved on the surface of the bottle. Purchase a nice cork, a big alloy key, and also collect some sands, shells and pebbles that will go inside the bottle.

Getting a personal message engraved on the bottle’s surface is not a big deal. You can easily find a person or shop that does laser engraving. You can also search the Internet for the same, and for the bottle, you should visit the antique shop in your city. Alternatively, you can purchase the bottle from online Antique shop. I will suggest going for a fancy-shaped bottle. I would prefer a colorless Egyptian looking bottle. A colored bottle with distinct shape will also serve the purpose. This is basically a matter of personal choice.

Message in the bottle (bringing form and substance together)

First, take the letter with the personalized message and roll it into a scroll. Use a fancy ribbon to tie a knot around it. Keep this letter aside, and take sand, pebbles and shells. Put them inside the bottle. Now it’s time to put the scroll inside before corking it up. Wrap the super gift either in a red, shiny satin, or put it in a red velvet pouch. You can also use red, transparent wrapping plastic.

Instead of using decorative ribbon, you should hang the big alloy key, the key to your heart, in a gold chain or a golden string coiled around the neck of the bottle to make this personalized gift more romantic.

To make the romantic gift more special, you can also consider getting your name and “key to my heart” embossed on the key. This obviously depends upon your taste and your budget.

The Romantic Journey

Everyone has a story to tell, some embarrassing ones and some lovey-dovey kind. Create a beautiful romance journal consisting of all the little stories of how you felt before meeting her, what you did, how you arrange money for the dinner, your appointment with dentist etc. Gifting your girlfriend a personalized romance journal on 2^nd or 3^rd year’s valentine day will thrill your girlfriend. And the fact that you are sharing even those nervous moments of your life with your girlfriend will make her love you more. The romance journal will give a personal account of the things you did from the day you saw and liked her to the day you got together.

Romanticizing the story

The personalized romance journal I am proposing here will prove how human you are. No one likes superman, and no one expect you to be just perfect. Everyone knows you are human, so accepting that you were nervous before meeting her, or you were sweating when talking to her over phone for the first time will prove how honest and how human you are. This is the essence of the Romance Journal I am asking you to create. By removing the layer of superman off you, the journal will uncover the real you.

To create the page layout and over of this super gift, you will need a page designing software like Adobe Indesign or Quark Express. You will also need a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop or Gimp (open source) to design the cover for the journal as well as to optimize the image, if you are planning to use some.

If you can write beautifully then well and good, but if you cannot, then along with these tools, you will also need help of a professional writer to carve a sculpture from the raw experiences you will provide him written on a sheet of paper or in a word document. Even if you hire a professional writer to do the final writing work, you will have to write down the experiences you had and the thoughts that came to your mind before meeting your beloved. The information you will provide to the writer will work as a raw material from which a beautiful statue of love will be carved for you.

Finding a writer is not difficult, but finding a good writer that meets your need is slightly difficult, but do not lose hope, you will find one. Ask for two or three sample articles before giving the writer the responsibility to write your romance journal. A badly written journal will ruin the effect you want to create. Undertake this activity (writing) at least two months in advance. It will give you enough time to hire another writer, if the first one did not work to your satisfaction. It would be beneficial for you to find a writer who can do the image editing and layout creation work as well. This will save you some good dollars.

The process of creating the personalized gift will begin with writing short accounts of the things that you did to prepare for the date, or the mental notes you took before calling her. You need to write about the little stuffs that seemed important then but now seem completely useless, and even thinking about that embarrasses you. write about your visit to the dentist, or about the tips your friends gave you, or help you sought from experts on the Internet, or the money you borrowed from your friends for the big dinner, or the days you wasted in preparing for the meeting, or the time you spent in thinking what to say after calling her, or about those blank calls that you gave her just to hear her voice, etc.

After the writing is done, hand the written material over to the writer (if you have hired someone to do the final writing). Keep a close eye on the progress, and see if the writer is writing to your satisfaction or not, and if he or she is able to express your true emotion or not.

Meanwhile, you can shortlist the images you want to use at appropriate places in your personal romance journal. You can even use an image for the cover, if you want to put a picture on it. Optimize the selected images and start designing the cover. The design of the cover will depend upon the content of the journal, so first get the journal written, and then go for the cover designing.

You should use a good quality printer to get your journal printed. You can find many good printers on the Internet. Contact them ask for their samples, and rates. I will recommend going for digital printing. Color reproduction in digital printing is better than that in offset or screen printing.

Make him the lord of the ring or her the lady of the ring

Though this gift idea is unisex, it requires two different styles of rings for each of the sexes. Using just one type of ring, a circular ring with engraving on it is also permissible for both the sexes, but I have assumed in writing this gift idea that you will choose different rings for different sexes.

The idea is to gift a ring on the valentine day with a personalized message engraved on it. You can also gift this gift on your marriage anniversary.

The resources you need

Despite all its attractiveness, and all its emotion quotient, this super gift is not going to make you sweat. This is one of the easiest gifts to create. To create this custom ring, all you need is a little bit of creativity, an ability to search the Internet, a romantic heart, and a strong desire to make him or her feel special. If you wish, and you have a knack for jewelry designing, or you know someone who can do this work for you then you can even consider getting the ring designed.

The Ring in the making

To create this custom gift, you need to begin with conducting an online research for the company that specializes in creating rings with the personalized message. Alternatively, you can also get the ring designed, as stated above. Visit a local jeweler to get the ring crafted. Even if you are planning to get a ring created for your beloved, I will suggest you to conduct a research on the Internet to know the design options you have. It is better to search the Internet for the designs of the ring before requesting a friend or a professional to design a ring for you then to wait until the person churns out a ring from his or her imagination. The later approach will be more time consuming.

I will suggest you to search the Internet and make a list consisting of 5-10 ring designs, and then approach the jewelry designer to get one of them designed. Sometime during the process, you also need to visit the jeweler and see if they have enough talent to craft the ring with the required delicacy. The jewelry designer as well as the jeweler will ask about the material you want to use for the ring. Depending upon your taste, budget and the design’s requirement, you can go for either silver, gold, white gold, platinum or mixture of any two metals. A stainless steel ring also looks classy, so this option should also not be ruled out.

The process of finalizing the design, getting the blueprint from the designer, and getting the final output from the jeweler will take some time. If you are in hurry, you can search for the company that can engrave a personalized message you want on the ring using laser gun. As said above, there are many online companies that can help you in getting this done. These companies do have a good range of different kinds of ring ideal for either of the sexes.

At any convenient time before the ring goes to the jeweler or to the online company of your choice for crafting, you need to write a personalized message that will get engraved on the ring. Keeping in mind the longevity of a ring, I will suggest you to write a message that is timeless. I will suggest against writing something like “Happy Valentine Day 2009″ or “Happy 21^st Marriage Anniversary”. Instead, write something like “I think of you when someone says Love” or “For me love means you”.

One word of caution: Seeing the limitation of the medium, limit the number of words in the personalized message to five, and ask the jeweler to fill the engraved message with a contrast color. For example: if you are using stainless steel, silver, platinum or white gold then the text engraved should be of pitch-black color, and if you are going for gold then use cherry-red to paint the engraved message. Do not hesitate to experiment, but do a test run of the color combination on a sheet of paper or on a computer before finalizing the color combination.

In many cases, you do not need to go to a jewelry designer to get your ring designed, instead what you can do is search a ring design from the Internet, and go directly to the jeweler to get your ring made.