For my first Christmas with Drew back in 2019, he gifted me a handmade notebook he got from Etsy. He bought it for me to write poems and short stories in, but I had other ideas. I originally wanted to fill the notebook up with poems and short stories that I wrote for him and give it to him for Valentine’s Day 2020. I never got the chance to write everything I had in it, but also didn’t have enough material to fill it up. The book is 192 pages. I knew I would eventually get to it, but then COVID and graduate school got in the way.
I finally got to follow through with the project this past Christmas. The idea of the project changed a little. Instead of just poems and short stories, I decided to add photos, stickers, and memories. The notebook turned into basically a scrapbook. It took some time to get all of the materials together before working on the actual book. I updated my progress of it on my Instagram story as I worked on it (Drew doesn’t have an Instagram).
I numbered all of the pages since there were so many so that Drew wouldn’t need to flip through the whole book to find something. I also made the book in chronological order from the beginning of our relationship to the present.
It definitely took a lot longer to put together than I thought it would. Putting the glue dots on the photos and writing everything out took so long. I thought it would take a couple of days, but it wound up taking about two weeks.
I didn’t know it would be a problem until I first noticed it, but the book started to get poofy. It was because of all of the photos I put in. I didn’t let it discourage me. At least the book didnt have any real binding.
As it got closer to Christmas, I started to get worried that I wouldn’t finish the book in time. I stayed up till 5AM for three nights in a row to make sure I would finish the gift.
Staying up so late is probably the only reason I finished before Christmas. I was so happy to have it completed. My last step was to go back through the whole book and add stickers and title pages.
Because the book was so poofy by the end, I had to buy a box to keep it in so that it doesn’t get ruined. To wrap it, I stuffed the box with tissue paper to keep it from sliding around. I added a bookmark with the book so that he could keep his place when reading it.
I was so excited to give Drew his present. I spent so many hours working on it and feel so proud of my work. He knew that I was making him something and working hard on it, but he didn’t know what it was. When he opened the box, he was so happy with what he saw. He said “wow” a couple of times as he flipped through the book. He said it was the most thoughtful present he’s ever recieved in his life.
This was the biggest project I’ve ever worked on. I completed my graduate thesis, but that was 59 pages, this was 192. Working on Drew’s gift has made me excited for making other future projects. I’m thinking about getting into scrapbooking or putting together a photo album. I’ve also been thinking about my original idea of writing him a book of poetry or short stories, or both!
I’m proud of my work and am so happy that he loves it. I feel like I made a time capsule of our entire relationship. It made me really appreciate the time we’ve had together, and excited for our future.
Little Life of Amber 