Dustan's Birthday Surprise

Today was Dustan's birthday and I had several different ideas I found on Pinterest that I incorporated into his birthday celebration.  As I have time I will post those ideas as well.  His main gift was a bistro table for the patio so we would no long have to try balancing our plates and drinks in our laps when we eat outside.  We've found we really like eating out on the patio but we are not very graceful when we are not sitting at a table.  So needless to say our eating in lawn chairs out of our laps was less than successful most evenings. 

For Dustan's secondary gift I wanted to make him a date night jar I'd seen on Pinterest.  (So this may be a gift that benefits us both.)  The idea was when you were in a date night rut you could draw a date out and then proceed with it.  The dates were color coded into three categories: costly and needed to plan for dates, stay at home dates and not as costly and needed little planning. 

To get started I went to the trusty Hobby Lobby, which I lovingly call The Lob.  At The Lob I picked up a cute jar, stickers and cardstock. When I got home I carefully cut some cute heart paper into the shape of lid and placed it inside the lid for decoration. 

I then took and put a bling-y sticker on the top of the lid to top it off.  I'd thought about getting a "R" and putting it inside the bling sticker on top but didn't remember to get one.  I also put stickers on the outside of the jar for extra decoration.  I'm a kindergarten teacher, I like stickers.  The sparkl-ier the better.

I then cut three pieces of cardstock into 1-inch strips.  I used white, pink and red.  After cutting the cardstock I chose which color I wanted to represent each kind of date night. 

On the red cardstock I wrote dates that would require some planning and were more costly.

On the pink cardstock I wrote the dates that would require little planning and on the less costly end of date night. 

 

On the white cardstock I wrote out dates that were stay at home dates.

Once I'd finished writing all the different ideas down that I could think of for the various types of dates I then folded each one up and placed it in the jar.  After I finished and put the lid on the jar I then realized I needed to put the date code somewhere.  I flipped the jar over and wrote on the bottom of the jar:   Red: Costly & Planning  White: Stay at Home     Pink: Less Costly & Little Planning

Here is my finished date jar.  Dustan really liked reading through all the different date nights I had put in the jar.  If you have an upcoming wedding don't be surprised if you find one of these in addition to your gift registry present.