{Date Night} January

David and I went on our first date from his birthday date basket this weekend! The date was something we had never done before. We went to a Painting with a Twist class. SO. MUCH. FUN!

 
In the envelope I included an info sheet describing the date, a gift card to Raising Canes for dinner, our confirmation page for the class, an "example" painting and a few paint brushes just for fun!

I was a little worried at first that David would hate the date! David is not much of the paint-a-pretty-picture kind of person! But after looking on the calendar, I spotted a class I knew he would love. Paint Your Own Rodrique Blue Dog.

Have you heard of Rodrique's Blue Dogs? David and I first spotted them on our trip to New Orleans a little over a year ago. David has loved them ever since.  I thought it would be fun for us to paint our own (since we will never be able to afford an original!).

George Rodrique

We started the evening off with dinner at Raising Canes and then headed to the class.  We checked in and picked up our canvases and our "twist"- a bottle of wine.

They had pre-sketched out our pictures since everyone's would be different. David painted George Rodrique's LSU Blue Dog but we changed it from a LSU jersey to a Razorback jersey!! I painted the Blue Dog sitting in an Eames Rocker!  The teacher taught us the basics of how to paint the Blue Dog and then they walked around to help with everyone's background.

David finished his in time but I took a little too long trying to make all the blues blend that I had to kind of rush on my background but came home and put on the finishing touches! We both left feeling pretty impressed with our painting abilities!! 

We both had a wonderful time! If there is a Painting with a Twist location near you, you should give it a try! We are looking forward to going to another class soon! 

UPDATE- David and I had so much fun in January we decided to go back for our Valentine's date and paint another Blue Dog!! 

{Date Night} Pre-Planned Date Basket

I am so excited about one of the gifts I gave David for his birthday! It not only is a gift for him but I get to enjoy it as well!! I gave him a basket with a pre-planned date for every month this year!!

I know you have seen a few of these floating around on Pinterest! They were just too cute of an idea to pass up. My inspiration came from here and here!

My basket has 12 envelopes.  Each labeled with a month of the year.  And each envelope contains a pre-planned, (mostly) pre-paid date just for us.  Some dates will be simple dates at home, some are around our hometown and then a few are planned to be out-of-town getaways for the evening or weekend!! I tried to plan it to where if one month's date might be a little pricey, then the next month we take it easy and have an inexpensive but still fun date at home or around town! The plan is to open the envelope together at the beginning of the month, look at the calendar and decide on a date.  So right from the beginning of the month, we'll have a fun date on the calendar to look forward to.

Our first date is tonight!! David and I are both looking forward to a night of fun!


Check out our dates:
{Date Night} January
{Date Night} February
{Date Night} March 
{Date Night} March.... April
{Date Night} April  
{Date Night} May 
{Date Night} June 
{Date Night} July
{Date Night} August  
{Date Night} September
{Date Night} October
(I never got around to blogging about our last two dates)
November- Sketch and Sip Date- We went to Starbucks and had coffees while sketching out what we both wanted in our future home remodel.
December- Christmas Light Drive- We made hot chocolates and drove through town looking at all the Christmas lights.

This Little Word of Mine

I'm jumping on the word of the year bandwagon. I really do think the idea is a great one! The idea is to choose a word that I can focus on, mediate on, and reflect upon as I go about my daily life.

This year I choose the word TRUST!

David and I have a big year ahead of us! We will be making a BIG move (and by big, I mean like over an ocean big). Well... the big move won't be until this time next year but the preparations and all that leading up to it will take a lot of trusting and leaning on God.

We have known about this for about 6 months but the details of the move are somewhat vague right now. Overall, we are very excited about our adventure together. But every now and then I catch myself worrying.... about all sorts of things- some big, some small. But I know that God will take care of us while we are over there and when we come back home.

So I am working on letting go and giving all of the worries to God.  I will be TRUSTing in Him in 2012, and 2013, and 2014, and so on!


What is your word of the year? Anyone have any big changes coming up that require a little trusting to get you through?

Rotational Calendar

Do you ever think back to what you were doing this time last year? It's fun to see where you have been and how your life has changed in just a short time. What about five years ago? Is it that easy to remember?  This year I am going to start a rotational calendar- like this one on Design Sponge. The idea is very simple — flip to the current date and at the end of the day, write down something that happened. Although this first year isn't as rewarding, it will be fun to look back after a few years and see all the big and small things that happened in that time!

I started with a 4" x 6" stack of lined notecards, paper trimmer, date stamp, old cards, decorative paper, and a glue stick. I had all these on hand so this project was free to me. 

First you start by cutting 183 note cards in half. This is good to do while watching your favorite show... it takes a little while.

Then I stamped the month and day at the top right corner of every page. If you have a date stamp like mine, make sure to line it up where the year won't stamp on to your note card.

Then I took some old birthday cards that we had at home and cut them to the same width but just a half an inch taller than the note cards and covered them with some pretty paper that came from my desk calendar last year. This makes colorful dividers to put between the months.

I put the stack of note cards and dividers in a ceramic Farmer's Market Basket from Anthropologie. And there you have it! Simple and something that you will use everyday!!

I started on New Years Day and I'm looking forward to keeping it up for years to come!
Remodelaholic