The Romantic.com

PAST MEETS PRESENT

submitted by: Emily French

My fiance had birthday coming up and I needed a way to show him how much he means to me.  Then I remembered how much he admired a collage I had made as a child that he saw hanging in my Grandparents house.

It had cut out photos of me grouped together.  The photos were random moments of me being a crazy child, but he still loved them.  In one my mouth and hands were covered with chocolate. In another I jumped on a mattress with only my t-shirt on.  He always told me how much he wanted a copy of the collage.

I still had the original copy at my house so I made a color copy and bought a large frame for it. But rather than giving him just me – I decided to include our picture perfect – and not so picture perfect moments together.

I left plenty of white space around the original collage and then I went through our photos and picked out happy and funny times together and pasted them around the pictures of me as a child.   I also found quotes about love and life and wrote them near pictures.  Last, I made funny quotes or quotes describing the times we’ve had together and wrote them near pictures.

In the corner I wrote “Happy Birthday” along with the date.  My favorite picture in the collage shows us in the middle of a ‘dip’ on the dance floor.

The final product joined my past and our present together, and the reaction from my fiance was worth all the work.  His eyes teared up and he smiled.  He hung the ‘picture’ above his bed and says that looking at it still makes him smile and puts humor and love into his heart. I think any gift with art shows your partner how much you love them because creativity reveals a deeper part of yourself than what money can buy.