Cards and Gifts Prep for the Month

GIVE THIS A TRY:

OK with the Summers being a crazy time for us I try to pre-prep as much as possible the rest of the year I will do this one month at a time. Now I am talking about birthday, anniversary, graduation, housewarming, baby/bridal showers ect. I then place everything in one place where we can grab and go. No last minute scramble to buy a gift or bag, no rush to find a card. Some of my tips are posted below. 

1.) Buy cards in bulk and at Dollar Tree

We buy our cards at Dollar Tree. I know cheap. But they have a lot of cute ones and I would rather take the extra $2-5 I would have spent on a card on the gift. When I buy cards I will take a list of who/what I need. This last trip was for May, June and July because of the baby coming so I had 15 Birthday cards (a mix of ages for kids and adults), 2 bridal showers, 1 wedding, fathers day, 10 graduations and 1 housewarming. 

I take the cards once they are sealed and write the persons name on it. On the back I will write the date, time and location of the event. This is such a nice hack to have so you are not digging looking for the invite for a party to find the address. 

I keep our invites taped in my planner on the week of the event  for family history but so having written if Nate drops the kids off or goes without me he doesn't have to take it out

2.) Find a gift that can fit in the envelope or slip both into a cute bag and tie it. 

For graduations I typically give a nice journal to the graduate to have to record their new adventure. Sometimes I will tuck in some cash or a gift card for them. For our Nieces and Nephews we have been just doing cards for birthdays so we add in some fun stickers or activity pages for them the play with. 

3.) Keep a Stash

 Keep a stash of kids gifts on hand for your kids to "shop from" without the stress of the store and having to argue over prices. This is a newer one we have been using. With B (our 7 year old) he loves to shop and has good taste on what his friends and family would want but he usually will go for things outside our budget. When we go to the store we will tell him you have x amount to buy a gift. He then takes FOREVER to shop. So we have the mommy store now that he can pick from. I will pick up things on sale, dollar store, yard sales ect that I can store in our tote. Our younger 2 love this too because they get to pick a gift and help wrap it. When you keep your eyes open you can finds some great deals on gifts. NOTE: Make sure you set a limit and are aware of what you already have tucked away. Also LIMIT the space you are allowed to use. We have 1 tote. That tote holds our birthday favors, gifts and a handful of knit hats (we give these away at the holidays) 

4.) Keep Gifts in One Place

 Finally any gifts we are giving to anyone or that come in for us go here till the day needed. That way those gifts are where we need them when we need them. We stack our kids gifts here for their birthdays as packages come in the mail. They love opening up the mail and boxes so this is one way we can let them know that they couldn't open it because it was for their birthday. Not to mention it creates a lot of anticipation for opening gifts time.