Uncommon Prizes

As a child, I never liked it when my mom and dad went out of town. To ease the pain for my brother and me, my mom would leave us a tiny daily gift, or prize. We had one to open on each day they were gone. It gave us something to look forward to opening, as well as something to play with.


As a mom, I realized that I didn't like leaving my children anymore than I liked being left when I was little. So, when we would have to leave them to go on a trip, I would provide daily prizes for them to open. When they were small, they usually got a toy or candy. The prizes evolved over the years to coincide with their ages and interests. They really loved it and it has been a tradition that I have maintained. Amby liked it so much that she now leaves prizes for Nathan, too.


Well, Zac still lives at home, so I left him prizes to open while we were in Mexico. Yes, he is 22. But it's tradition. And if Amby still lived here, I would have left her prizes, also. Actually, technically, I think she owes me about 2 years of prizes. hmmm....


A 22-year old needs grown-up, sophisticated prizes, such as Twizzlers, M&M's, and jumbo bubble gum. Also, Take 5 candy bars are awesome. I was eating one a while back, and Zac made fun of me and said it was "old people candy". I let him have a bite and now it is his all-time favorite. Ha.


I also got him a few gift cards:

I love to make the packaging fun. I have been using Printmaster, which is very useful computer graphics software, for several years. I have used it for countless projects, such as cards, gift tags, invitations, personalized stationery, etc. I highly recommend it. Platinum Version 17 is now available. For the tags, I imported some of my favorite pictures of Zac, and printed a day of the week on each one. I am a font fiend, and a great place to download amazing fonts is dafont.com.
I used heavy card stock for the tags. The pictures appear more vivid if you use white. This is how it looked on my computer the week before IT FRIED LIKE AN EGG.

I bought these gift bags at Michael's. I tied the tags on with a thin rope, so it would be manly:

I encourage you to do this for your kids. They are your very best investment. You can make it as simple or as complicated as you want. Use your imagination! I promise that it will be as much fun for you as it is for them, and it will build wonderful memories.