... Happy Birthday, because it means I get presents.

     Every directioner has one thing in common.. besides the obsessing, stalking, and loving of a certain five european boys. There is one more similarity --- > we all have birthdays! While the ideal gift would be front row concert tickets, I have the next best thing for you. 

      Ladies and gents let me introduce you to probably the most fun gift to put together, and to receive! Ashley and I made this last month and couldn't wait to share. <3 This was just too much fun.

     The Supplies Needed: 

• A large cardboard box
• Water balloons
• Picture and quotes printed small
• Time!

     1. Start by collecting everything. Remember to start early! This takes time, but is super worth it. Some planning is definitely neccessary. Think about how many balloons you want to make, how many pictures you want to add, how crazy you want to go!

     

       2. For our gift, we went big. At the end, we ended up having 114 small balloons filled up, each probably containing between 3-5 photos in it.. you do the math (;

      3. First you need to print out your pictures. The subject matter is up to you! We had a ton of One Direction, some Taylor Swift quotes, the hysterical Sue Sylvester from Glee and her best lines, Hunger Games funnies, and more One Direction. The easiest way to complete this is to copy/paste them into a word document, resize them all to around 1-2in, print and cut out.

      4. Next is to find anything else you want to include, for example:

         -we each chipped in some five dollar bills to give

         -two friendship bracelets were made for the birthday girl 

         -handwritten quotes were made

      5. Now for the fun part! Everyone probably could find their own method to stuffing the balloons, but I'll share how i did it. Make sure to fold the pictures long and skinny. Stretch out the balloon a bit and insert the pictures, carefully! You can get more into one balloon depending on how you fold them, and with practice. Once the papers are in the balloon, stretch the mouth of it up, so you can blow up the ballon.

      6. Once you have all of your balloons filled, blown up, and tied, you are ready to complete the gift. After packing them into a suitable box we made this card, including a safety pin to give her an idea of what she needed to do (:     

      7. Lastly we taped everything closed, decorated the box a bit to cover up the unsightly labels and tears, AND VIOLA! You're ready to wrap.

      The reaction after giving this gift is priceless. We had such a blast watching her pop open all of these little surprises... and an hour later we were left with this:

What a great day!