Pinterest Project | DIY Date Night Jar

 

I must admit, I was a little hesitant about making this for Benn because I thought he might think it was "lame", and I wasn't too keen on getting rejected on Christmas morning. But our relationship as really needed a kick in the butt lately in terms of romance and dating, so I decided to go ahead with it, hoping he would love it.

Turns out I was right! It was "the best preset by far" that he got and he was so excited to "do lots of fun stuff like we used to". Not only was it special makign something hand-made, but I also love that we can use i everyweek! I have put it on the fire place, next to our photos to remind us to keep up to date, with our dates.

DIY Date Night Jar

Step One) Aquire small jar. I just used a washed out minced garlic jar. I wanted something small enough so you could still see the paddle pop sticks pocking out.
Step Two) Paint and gloss jar.

Step Three) Either buy coloured paddle pop sticks, or paint them a colour of your chossing. I bought a huge bag of brightly colour sticks and decided to go with yellow, organge and red. Mainly because I LOVE yellow and it was our wedding colour, but also becaue I found these colours the easiest to see once written on.
Step Three) Choose a range of dates, suiting to your personal preferences and write a small title of each date on one side of the paddle pop stick. On the other side use the dollar sign "$" to indicate the estimated pice of the date and number your dates. Because I had three different colours I decided to have three price groups ($ = Low Cost, $$ = Medium Cost, $$ = High Cost). This allows us to choose one date each week, no excuses, depending on what our budget looks like. I have included a list of the dates further down, which I sourced out many from a variety of websites. But I also just made some up which suited us as well. I wanted to have a wide variety of things, so it didn't feel like we were repeating dates!

Step Four) Most other date night jar tutorials don't have this step and just have a jar with the paddle pop sticks. I like giving things details and I thought if the dates had more details, then there was less option to avoid them because we will have no decisions to make (which is something I do not like doing without notice).
- So to accompany my jar, I made a booklet. I used yellow, orange and red paper to coorindate with the price groups of the paddle pop sticks.
- I numbered and labelled each date the same as the paddle pop sticks, and gave more detaail where required. Forexample, a paddle pop might say "Bush Walk", but the booklet also states; "Must be longer then one hour, Benn's choice of location, can drive to location".
Step Five) Cut out the coloured paper in which you wrote on your dates and glue each one to individly cut out black peices of paper ready to be made into a booklet.

Step Six) I also wrote a label for the jar to go with the booklet, so when it sits on the fire place it all ties in together. I ended up having 29 dates, so it became "29 Dates for 29 Weeks".

Our 29 dates are as follows;

Low Cost
1. Bush Walk - Longer then 1 hour & can drive to location.
2. Beach Day - Take Dogs, snacks and swimmers.
3. Fish and Chips - Have a picnic by the lake
4. Mexican Theme night - Entree, Main, Derest and Mexican movie.
5. Fancy Dress Dinner - Candles, cook together & fancy clothes.
6. Picnic in the Bush - Benn's choice of location & Neive to organise food.
7. Guitar Night - Play guitar together, learn a song together & have subway for dinner.
8. Guitar Hero Night - Start a new game & have kebabs for dinner.
9. Coffee Date
10.  Picnic Sunset - Neives choice of location & Benn to organise food.

Medium Cost
1. Dinner Out - RSL or Bowling club, Neives choice, new place.
2. Op - Shop Shopping - $25 limit each to go shopping!
3. 10 Pin Bowling.
4. Museum (or similar) and lunch out, Benn's choice.
5. Breakfast/Brunch date, Neives choice, new place.
6. Game Night - No technology, monopoloy (or similar), Benn's choice of take away.
7. Dollar Store Date - $15 to buy a gift for each other!
8. Mini Golf
9. No Fuss Candle Dinner - Fancy clothes, no technology & Neives choice of take away.

High Cost
1. Dinner Out - Australian Steak House.
2. Progressive Dinner - Entree, Main & Desert at different places, take turns driving.
3. Horse Riding.
4. Anything Date - $100 limit, Benn's choice.
5. Dinner/Lunch - Scratchly's on the Warf.
6. Dinner/Lunch - Catherine Hill Bay Pub.
7. Tree Top Adventure Park
8. Anything Date - $100 Limit, Neive's choice.
9. Romantic Bedroom night - New bedsheets, candles, no technology, drinks & music.
10. Camping - Plan for 1-2 nights away, must go within 1 months time.