I have a creativity predicament for you! I am currently a senior in college preparing to graduate in early May 2008. I would like to create a small keepsake for my closest friends to remember our time spent together over the past 4 years. I am a college student, after all, so it can't be anything to expensive, but definitely needs to be something creative and from the heart! Any help with ideas for this gift would be greatly appreciated.
Once again, in no particular order....
- Build a day: Make special invitations, inviting everyone to reserve a particular day when the group will take a stroll down memory lane. Meet early in the morning and have everyone write down one of their favorite things to do with the group. Experiences might be things such as eating at a particular restaurant, meeting at a particular place on campus for coffee each week, watching movies in someone's residence hall room, or shopping at a local thrift store or retail store. Once each person has noted their favorite experience on a paper, seal them in envelopes and mix them up. Then, randomly draw your first card from the stack and go about your business completing the activity. Move through the rest of the day in random order, doing whatever the next card says. It doesn't matter if they aren't in a sensible or efficient order. That's part of what will make it memorable.
- Something survivor-like: I'm not an expert on this show, but I seem to remember when it gets down to the final two, the remaining contestants do a walk, carrying their torches and paying tribute to each person who left them game before they did. As they stop at the torch symbolizing each person, the finalists say something nice about the person. Maybe you could do a final walk of campus - stopping along the way to pay tribute to each member of your group. If you really wanted to be fancy, you could plant photographs ahead of time at particular campus locations. Consider beginning late afternoon one day and finishing at dusk in a meaningful location. If everyone is of-age, you could arrange to have champagne at the final destination (if not, some crazy dean of students might track you down).
- Seal a Time Capsule: Have each person bring one thing to commemorate their college experience. Place the items in a box, wrapped in plastic wrap and packaging tape. Bring a shovel and some flowers then find a non-descript location on campus. Bury the time capsule and plant your flowers on top as a marker. Then you and your friends could make a pact to meet back at campus in a designated period of time to unseal the capsule. This could be extra fun if everyone also wrote a letter to themselves, to be put in the capsule and not read until the capsule is opened.
- Last Will and Testament: Purchase a container for each friend and then ask each person participating to a bring a momento and a note to be placed in each other's boxes. If you have six friends participating, you would have five momentos - one for each of your five friends. Items can be representative of your relationship with one another. It could be the same thing for everyone (for me, a Starbucks card is how most would remember me) or it could be something different for each person (a favorite t-shirt or yours, a CD they kept asking to borrow). If you like the sealing-concept from the time capsule, you could seal the boxes and agree on a future date and time when they will be opened. I might be in Texas, you might be in... say Virginia..., but at 6:00 p.m. one designated day, we all stop what we are doing and open our box.
That's my attempt to help. Good luck and CONGRATULATIONS on graduating... an accomplishment for which you should be VERY proud. Amy.. if you are out there... you are the queen of bringing closure. Maybe you will weigh in with a post.
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8 comments:
Here's my creativity dilemma, maybe you can cover it next week?
I'm the aunt to a whopping 13 nieces and nephews and we always host an Easter egg hunt on Easter Sunday. With some very young and some older children in the mix it is hard to think of ideas of what to put in the eggs. We've tried candy and money but again the age range or inability to keep the money distribution "fair" make those things harder. I hope you or your readers can provide some good ideas.
Auntie in Kentucky... your timing is good since Easter is just a couple of weekends away. I will put it in the "hopper" (no pun intended) and reply next Friday. That still gives you time before Easter Sunday.
Thanks for contributing.
Auntie in Kentucky:
What if you put some numbers in the eggs and then had a prize table that young and older children could claim them from.
Perhaps some of the prizes could be money envelopes or gift cards.
Could you just put candy in the eggs and then make small goody bags for everyone. Hit the dollar tree or dollar bins for cheap but FUN prizes and goodies.
Do you dye eggs with them? Maybe you could have a contest with this.
Most creative egg
Most beautiful egg
Most colorful egg
This activity would allow for more prize winning opportunity and you could divide it up in age divisions.
Which brings me to my next idea. Can you establish age divisions with the Easter Egg hunt? Another idea maybe to pair a younger child and older child together to "hunt." Maybe add to the crzyness and tie their legs together so they only have 3 legs (similar to a three legged race).
Something that I created when I was seperating from some close friends was a friendship journal which was circulated over the first year we seperated. We would write a couple of pages in it, include an inspirational quote or two, some fun stickers, and then mail it via snail mail with a small gift or something to make the other person smile in their new surroundings. I would anxiously await the journal and once the year was over it was really inspiring to look back on. Since it was a gift to a couple of my friends, they are now the holders of the journals. It made goodbye's not as hard and held us accountable to keep in touch.
I was in your shoes as I graduated with my under-grad degree a few years ago. There were 5 of us, which translated into me "creating" 4 memorable, similar, yet differing gifts for each of my friends. I went to Michaels (or any craft store) and bought 4 12x12 flat wooden squares. Then, in the same "crafty wood" section of the store, I purchased cut outs of things that represented each person ... and chose a shape for each name. Then I bought some different colors of craft paint (the small 2 oz sized ones)and a few sponge paint brushes, and painted each square white. With the cut-outs of the wood shapes, some sharpies, and some scrap-booking loose ends, I was able to create a 12x12 "picture" full of memories - at a glance they all looked very similar, but when looking more closely, they were individualized to each one of my friends. I then wrote each of them a personalized note on the back (maybe before gluing wood cut outs onto the front) with well wishes, etc. I hope this helps, and CONGRATS as well :)
An idea that I used once was to color code the eggs, so for example a 2 yr. old would search for only yellow eggs. The eggs could then be hidden in appropriate locations for this age and the "treasures" geared to each age. At the end of the hunt, a special prize was given to each child. In this case, a little stuffed animal or toy wrapped in paper or a bag of the appropriate color. The kids were given buckets in their color to search for the eggs.
Let me just interject. The ideas are great. Keep them coming.
Hey Dr. B!!! I am having a great time reading your blog. I just wanted to let you know that I shipped off my own "random act of kindness" box the beginning of this past week. Of course, inspired by your idea, I filled it with tons of goodies for my friend and her new family. It was so much fun to shop for stuff... and then I decorated the outside of the box, too. So, I just thought you should know that even though you are not my FFG or FW advisor anymore... you still have a huge impact on my life! MISS YOU TONS! :-D
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