12 Months of Pre-Planned Dates

I have been dying to share this!! Just dying! 12 months of pre-planned and pre-paid dates was my main Christmas gift to Kit in 2013. Our first date kinda flopped because there was some idiotic things I couldn’t control. However, we are back on schedule.

I found this idea of 12 Pre-Planned Dates on Pinterest. There are tons of them all over the internet. The blogger I linked had some great tips but the blog was a touch sparse when it came to actual ideas. I believe that was on purpose. The original blogger didn’t want you to do an exact copy because she wanted her readers to get creative and make it their very own. I am will toats share all of mine, never fear. I do stand behind her in saying: Make this your own! Don’t just copy the dates, sit down and put some serious thought into things that the two of you would like to do together.

For example, some couples may hate to cook together, but that is a great togetherness time that my husband and I have. I also wanted to keep these 12 dates on a very serious low budget. I think all together I spent less than $50. Those are some legit dates if you ask me.

What is this all about?

Come up with 12 date ideas. Write 12 letters, grab and label 12 envelopes and make sure to include anything needed to complete the date. Especially items like, printed off directions, brochures of destination, recipe cards, gift cards, or other specific things (like food coloring to go with a cookie recipe).

About a week before the new month open the envelope and pick a day to have your pre-planned date! So you would open the February date envelope sometime during the last week of January.

January

My plan for January was to get a $5 gift card for this local theatre that mostly does live performances. They promised to have several $2 movies they would show during January and the schedule of shows would be available–to include in my envelope–by mid December. Sadly, the show schedule didn’t come out until January and the shows are all scheduled for February.
To make matters worse the gift card to the theatre got lost in the mail somewhere. It might be in my PO box…silly mail. We hope to hold three dates in February, the Jan-date, Feb-date and something special for Valentine’s Date. March will feel uneventful after our crazy February ends.

February

I want each month to have its own blog post after we have the date, but since Kit has opened the February envelope I can summarize it here. February’s envelope includes: A bandana, a small tub of Wilton’s rose pink coloring, a recipe for super pink chocolate chip cookies, and a letter with instructions. The instructions essentially say that our challenge is to make chocolate chip cookies will taking turns being blindfolded.
I suppose if you wanted to analyze what this does for the relationship it can be noted that this is a trust building exercise. The blindfolded person must depend on the unimpaired partner to help make measurements.
My mom has asked about 15 times already….So yes, if you’re wondering it will probably be a naked cooking date. We’re adults and we can be naked. Hahaha, it also may be more amusing this way.
One of the best parts, in addition to nudity, is that we will have awesome super bright pink cookies to nosh when we finish the date. Milk and cookies is what’s up!

March

This one is a surprise! You’ll have to wait a month!! But I promise to continually add to this list so you know what we’re up to throughout the year.

Happy Dating!

~Kat~

DIY Googly Eyed Headband & Hat

I found a great craft on Pinterest done by The Crafty Blog Stalker.
The best part about this craft is that it is almost entirely a Dollar Store Craft. The one exception is you must buy or already own a hot glue gun and glue sticks.

Just so we’re clear you will need:

• Hot glue gun and glue sticks

• A package or two of googly eyes
• Headbands (the wider the headband the better for gluing eyes)
• And/Or, a knit hat

Step One: Gather supplies and get a workspace.

Step Two: Plug in your hot glue gun.

Step Three:
For the hat–Lay out a pattern that you like. I put a piece of cardboard (used the tag from the packaging) between the hat fabric layers. It would be lame to make a fun hat that you inadvertently glued shut.

For the headbands–Pick out a pattern that you like.

Step Four: For hat–Apply dots of glue to the backs of the googly eyes and stick to your hat. Allow to fully cool and dry before throwing it on your head. Again, you don’t want to have glue and hair and forehead all trapped and boiling hot.

For headbands–I applied glue to the headbands directly because my headbands were a bit more narrow than my big googly eyes. Be very careful not to get glue on your fingers. It’s stinkin’ hot! For the large eyes, I mashed them down and waited a couple of seconds to make sure I didn’t knock them back off while they were still cooling.

Step Five: Once you allow the pieces to fully cool, I picked away those little hairs that I always seem to have to deal with when hot gluing.

After doing that bit of housekeeping, throw on your accessory and hit the town.
I believe that people should dress up, or at least start getting festive during the whole month of October. I think the headbands would be a great accessory for people to wear who work in places they are not allowed to dress up. Offices and such typically err on the serious side. Hopefully your office doesn’t have a policy against wearing googly garb.

Kids: Get someone intelligent to supervise you. Or better yet, learn how to properly use tools, because when you’re an adult no one will stop you from chainsawing your fingers off. Hot glue is painful, please be careful.

This would make a fantastic costume piece too.
For example: I am working on creating a cherubim costume. The cherubim from L’Engle’s Wind in the Door were described as being a mass of eyes and feathers and wings. I believe a huge package of craft feathers and more hot glue is in my future. Feel free to use this idea and out-nerd all your friends at the next Halloween party. Perhaps more simply, this could be the spider eyes for a fun spider costume.

~Kat~

Beer Coasters

I have been collecting bottle caps for a long while and although I haven’t covered a coffee table by now I have completed this smaller project.

I bought a mess of plain wooden coasters at Goodwill for less than $2. I used my mini hot glue gun for the job. They didnt take much time and they look pretty darn adorable.

Inspired by: Bottle Cap Coasters DIY.

Day 312: GoGear

Bought these squishy travel bottles at my local salvage grocery. Yes, I buy everything I can at the salvage grocery. I am considering taking these bottles with me to Spain. The biggest bottle will likely hold some sort of laundry soap. I’m not above washing my clothes in a mop sink. I’ve not decided if I want to take a liquid laundry soap yet. I will probably fill the other bottles with a 2 in 1 soap and some leave-in conditioner. I know it sounds silly to take leave-in conditioner but my hair would be a hot mess without it. I need to be able to brush it and put it into a braid every day. Have you ever used this brand of bottle? Are they any good?

Day 230: Laser Games

I have had this game on my pinterest board for over a year. Have you ever seen those spy movies where the highly trained spies do extremely acrobatic maneuvers to dodge high intensity lasers?
If not, go watch Get Smart (Steve Carell & Anne Hathaway).
Back, yet? The rat was funny, right?

This game is dead simple to set up. Grab some yarn, ribbon or crepe paper ($1 for two rolls) and some tape. Find a room or hallway to set up that you can commit to solely gameplay for 30-60 minutes.

The only thing to keep in mind is the skills and abilities of your group. We made out obstacle course much higher that you might for children because ours was made for adults.

I suggest shoulder height to ankle height, but don’t stress about the details. Just have fun setting it up.

With tools as cheap as crepe paper and tape you can always afford to tape a laser back up if someone trips. We have very few mishaps because no one even wanted to get “burned” by the lasers, much less pull them down.

Even the cat wanted in on the fun. She made the game look too easy. Once everyone had a couple of runs through the course (including a time trial), we stepped up the difficulty by adding more lasers.

It was determined that loose fitting clothing was more likely to get your ‘laser’d’. My brother jacked up his pants so high that we were all in tears laughing.

One final thing to keep in mind…

If you want to play this will little kids, then make sure they don’t do this. My brothers are crazy. If you want to follow suit then please proceed with caution.

This was by far the most popular game that we played on Thanksgiving.
We played this game for nearly TWO HOURS!!!