Tertius and the Coupon Book of Awesome!

It is Tertius' 5th birthday today! It hardly seems like this much time has passed, but here we are, with a little boy who attended his kindergarten orientation today (which he *loved* by the way).

When family members asked what he wanted in the way of gifts, we ended up giving them all of our ideas, so Hubby and I were pondering a cool, fun, meaningful gift for our young man. Trust Hubby to come to the rescue with this brainchild:

He suggested that what Tertius really wants is for us to spend quality time with him. And he's right; as a middle child, he really does crave that one-on-one time between parent and child. I mean, do you know any 5 year old that *doesn't* enjoy being the center of attention?

So the two of us sat down and brainstormed ideas. We came up with 10 things that we felt he would really appreciate, and with that list in hand, we figured out a colour scheme and dove into my scrapbooking materials.

Three hours later, we had a product we were really happy with. We made a booklet of coupons that measures 4" x 6". Our pages were held together by punching a hole in the top left of each page and threading ribbon through to create a half-hitch knot.

Here is a list of the tools and materials we used:

- Card stock in various colours and patterns (I did a large portion of this by raiding my scrap paper folder)
- Paper cutter (mine is a $10 Cricut paper slicer from Wal-Mart)
- Glue stick (I had run out of my tape runner, so I kicked it old school, yo)
- Round paper punch
- various corner punches
- small, sharp scissors
- Xyron sticker maker
- stickers
- alphabet stickers
- ribbon
- computer and printer

Cost for this project:

 - absolutely nothing.

I had everything we needed in my scrapbooking stash. So this was a great project on three counts: it gave our son an amazing gift that he can cash in on throughout the year, it used up items we already had lying around (or tucked into my craft supplies, as the case may be), and it provided me with the focus for 10 really great and personal scrapbook spreads to put into Tertius' book in the future. And now, without further delay, here is what we made!



Front Cover:

Tertius' name has been edited out for his protection

As pictured above, the front cover is a cacaphony of colour. This was actually one of the last pages we made (well, that *I* made, as Hubby had gone to bed by that point). I had a large piece of orange card stock that I felt would be eye-catching, so I cut it in half and it was the perfect size. Then I grabbed some colourful off-cuts and glued them down in a Colour-block style. I used some dollar store stickers, and turned a few punched holes into stickers with my Xyron. I'm sure glad I bought two sets of those letters! I drew a string on the ribbon with a 0.5mm black pigma pen.

Page 1:

Not exactly the right type of train, but it gives the right idea, and c'mon, he's only 5!

I had some transportation-themed stickers, so Hubby found suitable train-like stickers (and even ticket stickers!) and made this simple page. Tertius has been asking to go back on the Skytrain ever since his first trip on it just over a year ago to go to Science World, so we thought it would be something that he'd love.

Page 2:

Scrap paper to the rescue once again!

The inspiration for this page was the wavy, textured paper. This was another remnant piece, left over from a scrapbook spread I'd done of a day at the beach from years ago. I added a base of light blue card stock, some bubbles thanks to the hole punch, and some dollar store 3D cardboard stickers. Voilà - the promise of a day of fun!

Page 3:

Actually, not nearly as creepy or scary as you might think!

We first visited The Reptile Guy on New Year's Day 2013, and Tertius has been talking about it ever since. We had the opportunity to see him and some of his critters in April at Hubby's work, but apparently, that wasn't enough for him, so now he gets to go on a special outing to see the animals again. Hubby chose this mossy green card stock for the base, and the photographic stickers I picked up at Wal- Mart 2 years ago finally got used. Oh, and a leftover spider sticker from a Hallowe'en spread and a turtle sticker from a baby set. Multi-purposing FTW!

Page 4:

What 5 year old boy wouldn't love high tea?

Tertius has said a few times now that he'd like to go for tea at our local British shop, so this was one we were happy to include. We agreed on sepia tones being the right look, and Hubby found this stripy paper, which I backed on the more rigid Parchtone card stock. Another piece of Parchtone for the label, and some ultra-fancy parentheses stickers in classic gold and fancy corners gave this page the right level of class and refinement.

Page 5:

Now this is an outing that Tertius can sink his teeth into!

Sticky's Candy is a local chain of candy shops that sell ice cream, Jelly Bellies, and a variety of new and old style candies. We've been in there a couple of times, but Tertius has never gotten anything there just for himself. I had some summer fair stickers, so we used them here, adding a variety of multi-coloured cast-offs from the hole punch, tossed through my Xyron. Easy peasy.

Page 6:

"Fore!"

We are fortunate to have several mini-golf places nearby, so Tertius will have his choice of where he'd like to go. A base of bright green, with a freehand-cut green in light green card stock, freehand flagpole, freehand golf club and hole punches in white and black gave us what we needed. I also freehand cut a tuft of grass, all in card stock. Again, using up remnant pieces.

Page 7:

And there's that awesome wavy paper again...

Since it was decent card stock, and it cost me about $2 for the one 12"x12" page, I wanted to use as much of it as possible. This one really didn't need a lot of embellishment, so Hubby kept it simple with a snorkel/mask sticker, and it was done.

Page 8:

Tertius loves going to the movie theatre. Our last time out as a family, we went to see The Lego Movie, and we'd like to catch it again before it leaves our local second-run place. We figured black was a good base, and I had a piece of royal blue already cut, so a quick glue job, and some more of the summer fair stickers, and we had something sure to put a smile on Tertius' face.

Pages 9 and 10:

Time to monkey around with Daddy!

 

...and with Mummy!

Tertius loves going to our local indoor playground, so we included two of these coupons; one for a trip with Hubby, one for a trip with me.

Back cover:

This was also our card, so we put the sentiment on the back.

Did you enjoy this post? Do you want to see more crafts on here? Post a comment and let me know!