handmade gifting: family fun activity binder

For my SIL, Danielle, I had a hard time deciding what to make for her.  Jeremy thought of a binder where we put activities and money and supplies to do fun things throughout the year. Since she is a single working mom of 2, she doesn't have oodles of time to prep fun things, so here is what I came up with! I started with the biggest binder I could get and dividers for each month.

Then I printed out these cute calendar pages from Hello, Cuteness! and looked up fun "holidays" to fill them in with.  So here is a sampling of the things in the binder.  There was a  crown craft for epiphany, a few dollars for balloons to send off on Balloon Ascension Day, a microwave peanut brittle recipe for Peanut Brittle Day, some giant bubble wrap to pop on Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, A wax paper/crayon shaving craft for early February Valentine's decorating,

A couple different pancake recipes for pancake day, Math games for World Math Day, bracelet making supplies for Middle Name Pride Day so that each could make a bracelet with their middle names (Which works out great since all three of them go by their middle names), some gold chocolate coins for hiding around on St. Patrick's Day, 

Supplies for an Easter bunny craft, a haiku for National Haiku Poetry Day, a Yoda craft for May the 4th, a dvd with a few different renditions of the chicken dance for National Chicken Dance Day, some money for buying zucchini seeds to plant, 

Doughnut recipe, family size tea bags for Iced Tea day, money for planting pumpkins in preparation for carving in October, money for ice cream, 

Friendship bracelet supplies for Friendship Day, a reminder for Sneak Some Zucchini onto your Neighbor's Porch Night (I put the money for planting zucchini early enough that she should have plenty for this..), kid friendly recipe for Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day, a short story for Roald Dahl Day, and each of them got a card and a mini gift for their birthdays,  

Money for chocolate cupcake baking, origami instructions and paper for Origami Day, a cookie recipe  to try out for National Cookie Day, instructions for origami ninja stars for International Ninja Day, money for a chocolate bar to use for Chocolate Covered Anything Day, and some Christmas themed puzzles. 

So I packed a LOT in there (I had to tie a ribbon around it to get it closed) and hopefully it will be a whole year of fun for them!  I'm thinking this would be a fun thing to give as a family gift or for a kid, too.