One Year Anniversary Gifts: Our Take on "Paper"

During our lovely anniversary getaway earlier this week (recap coming, once I sort through the photos), my husband and I exchanged gifts, which sort of followed the 1st year tradition of a paper gift.

And I say sort of, because while at least one of our gifts to each other involved paper, we both also just got something the other wanted, which in the end was way better than just sticking to tradition. We aren't super traditional people anyway, and considering that the second year gifts are supposed to be cotton or china...well, I see us breaking tradition in years to come. Getting someone something they want is much better than following some arbitrary rules! But for our first anniversary at least, we went the somewhat traditional route.

So what did we get for each other?

Well, I'll start with what I got my husband. First, I rented this awesome cabin with amazing Smoky Mountain views for three nights, which I'd already mentioned before.

I'll show more photos of the inside when I post more about the trip itself, but my husband was very surprised at how nice this "cabin" was--he was expecting something a whole lot more rustic!

My second and third gifts I got for him, I wrapped in some custom wrapping paper I made (just clip art and printer paper), to set the theme for his presents: robots!

In case you didn't know, my husband is an electromechanical engineer. Meaning he does stuff that's way above my head, so I always joke that he's working on "robots" when he's messing around with his electrical components. Also, he likes robots in general, and since he's ridiculously hard to buy presents for (why don't guys ever want stuff?!?), I decided I was going to think up some robot related things for his anniversary presents.

First up, I gave him a USB hub that was shaped like a robot. You can even move it's legs and arms to put it into funky poses. He'd mentioned months ago that he needed another USB hub, and since I have to be sneaky with him and always be on the look out for something he might like, I filed that little nugget of info away until now!

My final, and paper-related gift took a little bit of Google searching to find, and then I had to wait a month for it to arrive, but it was so worth it, because he loved it.

I found an artist, Ben Rollman, who will turn any photo into a robot portrait! I just knew my husband had always secretly wondered what he would look like as a robot, so I sent in one of our favorite wedding photos to be turned into robots.

I made a little card with the original wedding photo on it, and the vows I wrote to my husband on the back, and used it to cover the robot portrait in the circuit board frame (custom made for me by this etsy seller) I'd put it in, so the portrait itself would be a surprise until he pulled the card away.

But enough talking, here is what my husband and I look like as robots, with the original photo card for reference!

Super cool, right? I don't think I could have come up with a more perfect paper gift for my engineer husband!

Alright, now as far as the gifts he got for me, most of them weren't a surprise. Which is typical, because where I'm pretty good about plotting and scheming for a long time to come up with good gifts....my husband is not. So usually I just go through the Victoria's Secret catalog and circle what I want, or just straight tell him what to get me. It just works better that way for everyone.

So for my first gift, he got me some fun circle print fabric, that I'm going to use to make curtains for our bedroom. It was actually pretty funny, because we went to Joann Fabrics a few weeks ago to get him some plastic organizer things for all his little electric parts. And I just happened to find this fabric that I had to get (and wait forever for it to be cut). So when we got to the register, I tried to pay for everything, saying "Well, our anniversary is coming up..." and he reached around me and slid his debit card first, replying, "Yep, and here's my first installment to your anniversary gifts!"

(I totally know he just thought of it in the moment though, after I'd said something, but I didn't care! This fabric wasn't cheap, even with it being on sale for 50% off!)

I think it will go pretty well with our bedspread, once I actually get around to sewing them!

And to go with this new fabric, my husband also bought me these canvas wrap circle wall hangings that I'd been lusting over, to hang above our bed, on the opposite side of the room from the curtains. Canvas = paper, right?

I love everything about these, except the orange. But I have some paint in about the same shade of green as the curtain fabric that I think will remedy that!

My husband knows me so well, not only did he let me pick these gifts, but they involve craft projects and interior decorating! Hooray :)

The last present I received was my real paper gift, and one he thought up himself. And he even went so far as to make me custom shoe wrapping paper for it too (apparently since I'd bragged so much about the robot wrapping paper I'd made)!

And inside was a punch card sheet, worth 10 spider killings! Which may not mean a lot to most of you, but since I have to kill my own spiders now because I got to keep our 3rd cat (a deal my husband and I made about 4 years ago), I loved it! I will definitely be saving this up for some big scary North Carolina spiders!

So, that's the rundown of our first anniversary gifts to each other, and how we interpreted "paper gifts!"

We'll just have to wait and see what we end up getting each other next year, but I have a feeling it probably won't be cotton or china. I'm officially asking for a combined birthday + anniversary gift of a new house, so maybe we can just print out the sold property listing on really nice cotton resume paper? Would that count? ;)

Did you, or will you be getting your SO a traditional paper gift for your first anniversary, or are you going rogue and getting something different?