30th birthday gift?

Maddie&EthansMom wrote: My best friend is turning 30 one month before me. We've been friends since we were born. Her older sister is throwing her a birthday party. Do I take a gift and if so, what in the world do I get her? How much do I spend?

amymom replied: I do not know how much you should spend, but a few times I have seen a gift of 30 one dollar coins. (Aren't there new coins coming out?) One time I saw someone had put them on a tree like thing they got at Michaels and another time they were in a treasure chest like box. So if your budget were $30 then you could do that. (If a lesser budget you could do 30 50 cent pieces or 30 quarters etc. )

mysweetpeasWil&Wes replied: I would probably get a her a GC to a spa or just surprise her and take her one day and pay for her treatment. So maybe $50. Or get her a cute tote with fun spring stuff in it, like spring flipflops, sunglasses, etc.

Calimama replied:
I agree with giving her a gift certificate to a spa!

mom21kid2dogs replied: Don't you scrap? If so, you could do a book for her. I'm doing one for Stephen entitled "50 reasons why I love you" for his 50th in a few weeks. You could do 30 reasons why I'm glad we're friends. I'm sure she'd love it!

Someone gave my brother 40 dollar lottery tickets on a tree for his 40th. I thought it was a cute idea.

Our Lil' Family replied:
Me too!

Maddie&EthansMom replied: I'm certain her family will get her a spa day. She loves massages. As a matter of fact, she's a massage therapist.

I love the scrapbooking idea. I wish I had more pictures of us handy. I know I have a few from when we were kids, but she has more. I can maybe do a page or two for her personal scrapbook...she's a scrapper, too. How on earth am I going to find the time to get this done in 2 weeks.

I guess I better call her mother and see if she has pictures. The party is a surprise.

Maddie&EthansMom replied: Okay, I'm having fun with this!!!

I've already come up with a ton of ideas for the scrapbook with the pictures I know I have. I'm going to do a quote for each page. IE: "You have seen me at my best" with pictures from my wedding, etc. I have a lot more pictures than I thought and I can see what my mother has. Most of my pictures are teen and up, although I do have soccer pics and ballet pics and campfire pics

Our Lil' Family replied: Aww! That's a great idea!!

Carrie did something similar for me as a gift for being in her wedding, minus the pictures. There is a good quote you can use, "My best friend is the one that brings out the best in me"...feel free to steal!

CantWait replied:
great idea Aimee. Sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm sure it'll be greatly appreciated. I would have loved something like that for my birthday.

Brias3 replied:
If she's a scrapper too, why don't you make her some fun pages to add to a book she already has? For example, if you don't have a ton of pictures of the two of you, make up some neat looking pages with spaces included so its evident where she can insert pictures into the page. KWIM? I've gotten these before and LOVED it because I love the look of a scrapbook but am not a skilled scrapper myself.

mom21kid2dogs replied:
I'm doing mine digitally which I've never tried but it's much faster than I thought. Also, I didn't use many pics, just tags, quotes and the "reasons". An easier project is to just scrap her a friendship page. Pic your fav picture of her, get a few quotes or even scrap out some "reasons" you love her and attach them to the borders with brads. I made a page for my best friend, my sister and my bf's 18 yo son in about 4 or 5 hours. I just bought the 12x12 frames at Michael's and gave them as Christmas presents. All the recipients cried and they were very well recieved. Ya' can't beat personal gifts for those you cherish!

Maddie&EthansMom replied: Oh of course!!!! Digital would be SO MUCH cheaper! Shutterfly will even make a book of all your 12x12 digital scrapbook pages.

I talked to my mom and she is looking for some old pictures. I also talked to her mom and she already had a few she was using for the party and she got the albums down to look for more. She's so excited about my project!