Feb 2, 2010 is our 14th Wedding Anniversary.
Each year I try to do two things:
-have a part of the gift I made myself
-integrate the 'material' for that year.
14 is Ivory.
To make a long story short, my wife really enjoys these PNG stamp maps. So I attempted to make one, only to find out how entirely difficult it is to get classic stamps here. SO, I had a friend who made these, and I purchased one.
Then I went about including the hand-made portion and the Ivory.
Step 1:
-buy a pig's tooth necklace at Market OR get someone else to do it for you since Market starts at 6am.
Step 2:
-remove the necklace portion
Step 3:
-sneakily obtain a PNG stamp map from a friend who accidentally emails your wife about it and let's the cat out of the bag weeks early.
Step 4:
-pencil in your desired message
-carve the tooth carefully with a dremel tool unless you're experienced with bone carving or scrimshaw. I investigated these techniques and realized I would be unable to master even the easiest of carvings, so I went with the dremel.
Step 5:
-split open an ink pen of color choice (black)
-take a toothpick (or carved stick)
-fill in the lettering with the ink
-wipe excess away with a rag soaked in Methylated Spirits
Step 6:
-allow time to dry
-affix pigs tooth to frame
-mount in house on anniversary
-wait to see how long it takes your wife to notice.
(to her credit, she noticed in moments, although from a distance she thought the inked carving was 'sharpie'. It causes one to wonder if using permanent pen might not have been more attractive AND easier to do.)
And that's the 14th wedding anniversary gift.
For mine, Kendal made chocolate eclairs! Very yummy. Her first time trying them, and she did a GREAT job.
