Ideas for my Big's gift?

[LadyAlyss87]

Hi all.

My Big is graduating this upcoming fall semester and I wanted to make her a paddle for her gift. I am going to surprise her when we take her out to celebrate. In our chapter, we all receive an induction paddle from our bigs, and they are pretty simple and cute, so I want to make one for my big and I want it to be really nice.

Any ideas or suggestions on what I should include? Should I paint it or make it a little more formal by sticking to plain wood without paint?

I was thinking about the format being like this:

[her nickname-arched]
[her pledge class name]
[number]

[letter]

[letter]

[letter]

[university]
[Fall 2011]


And on the back have our poem engraved or etched.

Aside from that, any other ideas?