10 Personal Birthday Gifts to Make for Someone Special

10 ideas for personal birthday gifts that you can make yourself or put together individually. After all, it should be something very special for close friends, your partner or your own child.

It is often not easy to give someone a very special surprise for their birthday. At Abenteuer Freundschaft you can also find tips on how to plan a surprise party for the birthday boy or girl and what else you can organise to give them a special treat.

In addition, you also want to give people who are important to you something tangible, i.e. material, that still has a personal touch. It’s almost like looking for the perfect gift – not so easy! So here are 10 ideas for personal birthday gifts that the birthday boy or girl will associate with you.

You can find even more original ideas for gifts here!

10 Unique Ideas for Personal Birthday Gifts

1. A Very Personal Photo Album

Giving a photo album with photos of shared memories is a classic when it comes to personalised birthday gifts. It’s not the reinvention of the wheel, but it guarantees that the birthday boy or girl will be very happy. The more effort you put into the selection of photos and the design of the album, the happier they will be.

I remember when a good friend celebrated her 25th birthday and her best friend, whom she had actually known since the days of the sandbox, gave her an extensive photo album. In it, she had documented all the stages of their friendship with photos and added witty and personal comments. The recipient was in tears of joy as she leafed through the album.

2. A Basket Full of Memories as Personal Birthday Gifts

Shared memories can also be collected in the form of certain foods, figurines, items and objects and presented in a memory basket.

For one of my best friends, I can think of a few things that remind me of our time together in the Netherlands: different types of liquorice, a DVD of the film Excalibur, exclusive teas and Klontjes (rock candy), a North Holland calendar with motifs from our homeland at the time and perhaps a miniature Dutch bicycle as a reminder of our many cycling trips at school.

I think for every person with whom you have experienced a time very intensively, such shared memories come to mind and a basket full of them is a nice personal birthday present for him or her.

3. Our Songs… On CD With Self-Designed Cover

Come on the dance floor, they’re playing OUR song! – That’s already such a real cliché phrase from cheesy love movies. But like every cliché, this one also contains a kernel of truth: with your partner as well as with good friends, you usually have even more than one song that reminds you of earlier times. Why not put together a personal CD with the songs you associate with the birthday boy or girl and that are linked to shared memories.

4. The Personalised Board Game

Jutta, don’t get angry! Peter’s personal chess board or a pack of cards covered with photos of friends. Those who like to play will be reminded of you every time they use the board or deck. This gift requires more work, but it’s also something really special.

Here are full instructions on how to make a Bagh Chal board game yourself!

5. Personalised World Map or City Map

Buy a regular world map and make a personal collage out of it. This is especially appropriate if you’ve done some travelling together with the birthday boy or girl. If it’s your partner, you can also mark the place where you met with a heart on the world map.
Alternatively, get a map of the city you live in and mark places on it with stickers, photos or small drawings that have a special meaning for you.

6. Money Origami

You can also personalise money gifts by folding the notes into a bicycle, an aeroplane, a palm tree or a unicorn, for example. Free origami instructions with banknotes are available, for example, here.

7. The Cake With Extra Ingredients

In the funny paperbacks, the safecrackers would often sneak cakes with files baked into them to bail each other out of jail. If you’re a good baker, get out the scraper and bake a cake with something special in it: for example, a pendant in a box, a key ring, a hidden message, a voucher or anything else you can think of.

However, the item should be heat-resistant and not so small that it could be accidentally swallowed. If you can, it’s best to be there when the cake with the birthday surprise is cut… 😉

8. Homemade Lucky, Oracle or Voucher Tealights

Do you know fortune tealights? They’re like fortune biscuits only as tea lights…. They are tea lights that contain a message that only becomes visible when the candle has burned down. At the bottom of the tea light there is a nice, funny or even ominous saying.

The good thing is that you can do it yourself, as here describes in detail and well. This way you can hide your own personal advice, oracle sayings or even vouchers for small things in the tea lights instead of using trite calendar sayings.

9. Surprise Box for Difficult Times

Everyone has days, hours or even moments when you just feel like crying and unfortunately sometimes no one answers the phone to listen to you. The Surprise Box for Hard Times is designed for just such moments: fill a beautifully labelled shoe box, hat box or small treasure chest with 10 small wrapped gifts for the birthday boy or girl to open when he or she could use a little cheering up.

A few ideas for personal birthday gifts as content:

• Lucky sweets, chocolate, other sweets
• A little funny booklet
• Stickers
• Soap bubbles
• Mini cuddly toys
• A surprise egg
• A personal message
• A voucher for …a meal together, a visit to the theatre, cinema etc.

10. The Homemade Jigsaw Puzzle

You can also have jigsaw puzzles printed with your own motifs. This could be a photo of you and your partner, a picture of your group of friends, a holiday photo, etc. If you are artistically talented, you can of course also draw or paint a comic strip or a picture to be printed on the puzzle. Either way, the recipient will have a unique jigsaw puzzle in his or her hands!

What are the personal birthday gifts you would be most pleased with?

On Abenteuer Freundschaft you will find special gifts for friends and gifts for partners and many ideas for activities with friends, family and partners.

Never miss an idea and follow Abenteuer Freundschaft on Facebook and Instagram!