Birthday in a Box

After seeing numerous birthday, thankyou and hello presents 'in a box', I wondered why it had taken me so long to send one to my sister. Prolly because I didn't do Pinterest before! Well, the stuff you find there! Long after I should have gone to bed. Like this ... inspiration for Lauren's birthday box came from Make it Perfect and Pinterest.

Moving on, it was my sister Lauren's birthday in November. She lives in the Kimberley, where she has lived for a number of years, interspersed with a few years in Victoria, some time in Perth, Esperance and probably somewhere else I've forgotten.  So really, pretty much every gift she gets from me, arrives in a box. Never one like this though!

I put off sending a present because I couldn't think of what to give her. I bought cards (one from me, one from the kids and didn't post them...I have lost misplaced both and still haven't found them). I settled on a running shirt -her suggestion- but then a day or so later, found all these "birthday in a box" ideas. What was I going to do now? How could I not send a birthday in a box??!!


Wanna peek inside?...
 

Enter, the runner's survival pack (I'm not sure she's actually running outdoors because it is 46C in her neck of the woods), but still useful items - shirt, sunscreen (with repellant, very important for sandflies), undies, socks, mints (actually, I have no idea if she likes these but the kids chose them to match her shirt), chocolate (I know she will like that), hairbands, balloons, party blowers, cupcake cases (make your own cakes Loz) and... what else?! Candles of course. I nearly forgot to put them in!

I really wanted to post a helium balloon, like this, so it would float out of the box. How cool would that be!!

But I was told that the small balloons only hold helium for 20min, so it wasn't going to work this time. I'm not sure I could have put everything in the box together, with the birthday banner lifting up as the lid lifts up, in 20min. It would have deflated before I even got it to the post office!

Now I've put big expectations on myself for Christmas. And guess what? No surprises here, I put her Christmas in a box too! Can't tell you what's in it, because then it wouldn't be a surprise but I will post photos of it packed & ready to go tomorrow.