Give the Gift of Pre-Planned Year of Date Nights

Make a year of date nights as the perfect Christmas gift, Valentine’s Day gift, or anniversary present for your loved one. Create a super easy, yet adorable, planned year of date nights using just a few items.

With baby on my mind, I forgot to come up with a creative Valentine’s gift idea early for Justin. Oops! I love putting together a year of dates for us each year because then we’re way more likely to do them. However, with less than a week before the big day I didn’t have time to put together one of the cutesy year of date scrapbooks I usually do so had to come up with something a little more simpler but fun. So with that, I give you my super-awesome, creative year of date nights display!

This would be great for a Christmas gift, or birthday, or really any time gift when you need something cute to remind your loved one you’re thinking about some special nights to come.

Putting together the display is as easy as it looks. The hardest part is coming up with the 12 date night ideas. Well, 11 for us since January is passed so I just put a cute little quote in its place.

I just want to hold hands and waste Friday nights with you.

If you’re having a hard time coming up with some fun date ideas, just search creative date ideas (or diy dates or cheap dates or date night…you get the idea). Once I have them all figured out, I put them into a google spreadsheet so I’ll always have it and can add ideas for dates as I think of them or find deals.

For example, in my spreadsheet I list month, event, meal, approximate cost, and details. Then as I come up with more specific ideas I can put them in there. Or if I find a great Groupon for something I’ll put a note in the spreadsheet so I don’t forget that I bought it.

If you have kids, it’s a great idea to arrange ahead of time for a babysitter. I actually sat down with my mom and chose dates for the year and put a heart on our calendar when she will plan on watching the baby. Now we’re way less likely to make excuses of why we don’t have the time or got busy for a date since its been on the calendar for so long.

Once you have the dates planned, search in google images for an image that symbolizes that date. Save it to your computer and then have them printed on 4×6’s. I saved mine with a white border around them cropped as a square before uploading them to my printing website but that step isn’t necessary.

Our bedroom is gray, yellow, and neglected so I knew I wanted my display to fit in to our bedroom so it could double as practical and art. So you’ll see I used yellow baker’s twine, an old frame I painted gray, and yellow clothespins.

Once it was all put together I thought it just needed a little more pizazz so painted some little lovey wood embellishments yellow to match and hot glued them to the frame. I found the embellishments 40% off at Michael’s the week before Valentine’s Day.

I am pretty proud of this planned year of date nights!

Updated

Now that the end of the year is up and our monthly date nights are no longer a surprise to the hubby I can tell you what we did.

January – Nothing since I made this as a Valentine’s Day present
February – Fancy dinner out at Portland City Grill
March – Weekend trip to Seattle where we stayed at a bed and breakfast
April – Create a fun meal at-home together and then paint some canvases for your home
May – Get coffee, drive to the beach, have breakfast, drive home
June – Go to the park and draw up plans of our dream home
July – Rent tandem bikes on the waterfront
August – Discover someplace new. Go somewhere for appetizer, dinner, and dessert
September – Create a bucket list of things we want to do together in the next 10 years
October – Draw names out of a hat: one chooses a movie and the other chooses where we eat dinner
November – Go ice skating together
December – Head for a day trip on the mountain and go sledding

What are your favorite dates nights?

Share yours in the comments below and it might be used in an upcoming post. I had so much fun planning them and it’s even more fun now as Justin tries to guess what each date is just based on one little picture.

If this display inspired you, or maybe you just thought it was awesome, I’d love if you shared it with your friends or pinned it. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to never stop dating your spouse!