Note-For-You-Book

by TheFrogPrince&Family

It can be hard to think of ideas for homemade romantic gifts, and yet the options are more plentiful yet than those of romantic gifts you can buy. After all, almost anything becomes more romantic if you’ve put the thought, time and effort into making it yourself. Even things which normally are emotionally bland can be transformed into sentimental keepsakes if you put your own personal stamp on them.

One example of such a gift is what I think of as the note-(for-you)-book. If you’re up for making the book yourself, more power to you, but it still works plenty well to start with something store-bought. The format of the blank book you’re starting with should be chosen based on the kind of things that the intended recipient of the romantic gift tends to or needs to carry around. I first made one of these for a boyfriend in college, and used a multi-subject, college-ruled spiral notebook, since he needed to carry around one of those every day to take notes in class, anyway. The second one I made was for my now-husband, out of a pocket-sized, blank-paged sketchbook – he always liked to have something with him wherever he went, so he could jot down reminders, ideas, sketches, bits of writing, or information that he did not want to forget. Now, what you’re doing with whatever kind of book you start off with, that makes it a homemade romantic gift, is you’re taking a little bit of each page, or each set of facing pages – basing space taken up by what you do, on the amount of space started with – and in that little space of a corner or a margin or a few lines, you are putting something that will bring a smile to the face of the person who turns to that page for another reason entirely. You could write down a memory from your time together, or a hope, wish or dream. It could be some song lyrics that resonate for you, or a private joke. You could write down what you’re thinking about them at that moment, or what you wish you were doing with them at that moment. If you’re artistic, you could draw a small picture. You could tape in flat trinkets collected from times together: a pressed flower from a walk together, a movie ticket from a first date, an empty sugar packet from coffee shop talks, whatever. It can be anything, so long as it calls up a warm feeling.