Secret Coded Birthday Message

My sweet little niece turned six this summer. I wanted to give her a special birthday gift without spending a lot of money. When reflecting on my own childhood, I decided that a detective themed gift would be the perfect gift for this stage in her life. 

When I was a girl, Nancy Drew and The Bobbsey Twins were a few of my favorite fictitious  characters. My cousins and I would make up elaborate plots during our Nancy Drew reenactments. Clue was a favorite board game. And many summer afternoons were spent playing "detective" with my brother and sister.

The bulk of the gift was a box of Crayola's Twistable colored pencils and a monogramed notebook. To add some personality and make the gift special, I wrote a few coded messages within the opening pages of the book. (It took a lot of will power not to try out her new twistable pencils. But I sure wanted to - I'm a sucker for unique Crayola products.)

The first secret code was an simple Happy Birthday message.

This was followed by a much longer and personal message, written in numeric code

The final coded message read "you are beautiful." The remainder of the book is blank, for her to imagine and create her own detective notes and secret codes (or doodling is great too).

This was such a fun gift to make - totally brought me back to my elementary days. I hope she enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it. Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Linked: Bear Rabbit Bear