An Inexpensive, Easy Gift for a 60th Birthday

We'll soon attend a 60th birthday party, and everyone has been asked to bring 60 things as a gift. This could work for any birthday, but for some reason, 60 seems to be the popular number to do this sort of thing. Sure, we could take a jar of 60 jellybeans, a bag of 60 buttons, 60 postage stamps, or any number of other things. But what's the fun in that? I chose instead to make a custom, framed print of 60 words that describe the birthday girl.

Luckily, I was able to pick up a brand new float frame from our local thrift shop. I have great luck with frames there and got this one for only $7. The best part of the gift is that if she doesn't like the print, she can just replace it with photos and it's still a nice birthday present.

To make your own, here's what you'll need:

-Poster board
-Markers or pencils (I used three complimentary colors and alternated them)
-Straight edge
-Razor or scissors for cutting a straight edge

First, you'll want to decide on the size of your print. I Chose to keep the print's edges a couple of inches from the frame because I used a float frame. If you have a mat, you may want to fit it to that, or you could fill the whole frame. It's really up to you and the size of your frame.

Once you decide on the size, measure and mark your poster board accordingly. I left the poster board width as is, so I only needed to measure up each side.

I then used the straight edge to draw a line to connect my marks.

I used my razor knife to cut across the line. You could also use scissors, just ensure that you're cutting right on the line.

Once my paper was ready, I searched for an easy-to-draw font that would look good in the print. This page has a wonderful font that I found easy to use and I liked the way it looked on my page.

I came up with a list of 60 words. Thesaurus.com is an excellent resource for this, but you don't want to forget others like Mom, Daughter, Grandma, etc., as well as the person's name, when you're making your list. I kept the font list and the word list open on my screen while I worked.

I found it helpful to lightly write each word in pencil before I wrote it in marker. Since my marker colors weren't all dark, it worked best when I erased most of the pencil prior to using the marker. If you're using dark colors, you may not need to worry about that, though.

I wrote 59 of the words around the page, then saved the center area for her name, written much larger. There you have it! I framed it, and now it's ready to give. I think it turned out great, and I enjoyed doing it.

I have to warn you, though - the fancy writing took more time than I'd originally expected. I spent about 8 - 9 hours total on it, but I spread it out over the course of a few days so that it wasn't too tedious.