No more forgotten birthdays

This year, one of my resolutions is simple: stop forgetting birthdays. Since the twins were born, I have pretty much failed to send a single birthday card on time, and mostly I forget to send a card altogether. And as many of you will know, having children can already make you feel isolated from a lot of your friends, and I don’t think forgetting everyone’s birthdays helps matters much.

This week I worked out that I had already missed eight friends’ birthdays. And my mother-in-law’s. Urgent action was required.

I have everyone’s birthdays written in a birthday book, but that doesn’t help me buy the cards and remember to pick up stamps in time. For a while I had a stockpile of cards, and that helped a bit, but then it ran out and I failed to restock it. So when I came across a birthday card organiser on Pinterest (you can follow my boards here), I immediately liked the idea.

This week, the twins were at nursery and I was supposed to be working at home, but thanks to a week’s bout of sinusitis, my brain was unable to manage any kind of work-related productivity. So I decided to make my own birthday card organiser instead. And not only that, as 2012 is my year to tattoo FRUGAL onto my forehead, I have vowed to make all the cards as well.

I used a children’s Clark’s shoe box, and covered it with paper. Then I made 12 dividers – one for each month of the year. Behind each divider I’ve popped a cue card with all that month’s birthdays written on it. I was pretty pleased with the card organiser but it was useless until it contained cards.

So that afternoon I treated the twins to a trip to our local craft village to price up how much it would cost me to buy pre-folded cards. And at £8.95 for a box of 100 pre-folded cards and envelopes, I was sold. All fired up, that evening I made belated cards for all the missed January birthdays, and cards for upcoming January and February birthdays. I’ve stamped and addressed the envelopes, and written the day of the month in the top corner so I know when it needs to go in the post.

So I’m all set. Well, until the end of February at least. Now I just need to remember where I put my car keys…