A few years ago, I happened upon two ideas on pinterest (you know, where I get all of my ideas) that I decided to combine into a sweet Valentine’s Day gift for my husband. The two ideas combined an accordion envelope care package project with a date night jar. I thought I was pretty clever, but when trying to find the original care package post on Martha Stewart’s website, I found this post from 2011. I guess I wasn’t so terribly clever, but I still think mine is pretty neat so I will share it with all of you!
My accordion envelope project is made of 11 envelopes, one for each month of the rest of the year. In each envelope is a date for my husband and I, and the idea is that each date is kept a surprise until that month arrives.
Instructions:
1. Gather your materials
You will need envelopes, paper, ribbon or yarn, scissors, a glue stick, and a marker. For my project, I used colored envelopes, matching card stock paper and white card stock paper for accents. You can use any type of envelopes and paper and decorations you would like…I kept mine simple because I am not creative!
2. Glue your envelopes together
To create the accordion envelope system, you glue the top of one envelope to the back of another, like so…
3. Fold envelopes accordion style
Take the long line of envelopes and fold them back and forth in an accordion style.
4. Make month labels
I chose to make little month labels for each envelope, but you could also just write the months on the envelopes themselves.
5. Make date cards for each month
Write a different date idea on a card for each month. Again, since I’m not inherently creative, I made my cards a little fancier by layering white paper on the colored paper.
6. Make a fun tag for the top
This is obviously totally optional, or you could put a to/from tag on the top!
7. Wrap in ribbon or yarn
I was originally going to use the white yarn in the top picture, but found this purple ribbon I liked better.
And, DONE!
Now that you know how it’s done, I want to point out that this little DIY gift can be customized in so many ways! Here are some ideas:
- You could give this “date” gift to any special person in your life that you’d like to see every month, like parents, siblings, friends, older kids, etc. (This would be so cute as a “ladies night out” gift for a BFF!)
- If you are able, you could put any money needed for each date in the envelopes.
- Instead of date ideas, you could put a love note or inspirational quotes in each envelope.
- Instead of date ideas, you could put pictures from each month of the last year in each envelope. (Or make an envelope for each year, if you have several years under your belt!)
- Make a parent/grandparent gift with one of your child’s drawings in each envelope.
Let your imagination run with this one! Happy crafting!
