Oprah's Favorite Things Inspired Gift

As a working mom, I never watched the Oprah Winfrey show, but what human being hasn't heard about Oprah's Favorite Things show and all the amazing gifts she gives away to her studio audience? After hearing from a friend of mine about a Christmas gift she received, I decided to put these two "favorite things" ideas together in order to craft a birthday gift for one of my closest friends.

A little Photo Shop magic, and it's no longer an Oprah Magazine cover with Oprah and Ellen, but a personalized magazine cover with my friend's and my face!  I printed this image as the front cover of the birthday card I made to look like a magazine.  Hilarious!

Instead of writing a happy birthday message inside the card, I wanted to stick with the magazine theme. I decided to write a letter to the C&D Magazine subscribers of course mentioning my friend's birthday and how amazing she is. It also gave me a chance to explain the gift.

Just four of the items included.

For the actual gift, I bought 10 items that are some of my friend and my favorite things.  Each of these items was tied with a tag made on my Cricut machine. I tried to keep each item within a budget, so some items were purchased and others were handmade.  For example, my daughter really wanted to make my friend something too, and she decided to color a Little Mermaid picture for her.  I cut out the coloring book page after Ella was done, backed it with card stock, and then added it to the gift. My friend loved it!

Inside the card/magazine, I explained the included items much like Oprah does in her magazine. I did all these pages on Microsoft Word with images from Google.  I cut them to be 10"x7" (my card was 5x7) and folded them in half to place inside the "magazine".  I didn't have a stapler large enough to reach the fold, so I hole punched two small holes on the fold with my mini punch and threaded thin white ribbon through them/tied a knot to secure the book.

I also included some advertisement pages.  I did this mainly to fill up blank spots in the "magazine", but I also thought it would make it seem a bit more authentic. I chose images that I could easily manipulate with text boxes, etc, so that I could personalize them.

I had a lot of fun making this gift, and my friend really got a kick out of it. I wanted to share the idea with my readers in case you are looking for a creative way to present a gift in the future!  Enjoy!