Date Night Box

I know I have written about this before, but I wanted to write a more detailed description of what I call the "Date Night Box."

First, the outside:

Source: http://www.katherinebley.com/live_laugh_love_scrapbook/2010/05/altered-gift-box.html

1) Go to your local dollar store (or Goodwill or garage sales or whatever) and find a box that is big enough to hold 3x5 index cards but not so big it will take up a lot of extra space and be bulky.
2) Sort through your scrapbook paper (or scraps, or go to the dollar store or another scrapbooking store) and find two complimentary designs that you think would be fitting for a Date Night Box.
3) Take off any paper, frills, etc. from your box.
4) Cut your scrapbook paper a little larger than the actual size of the box, so you can wrap the edges where needed and also cover any seams.  Combine both color schemes to completely re-cover the box (and lid) -- even the inside, if it doesn't go with your theme and/or distracts your creative eye.

Source: http://www.savedbylovecreations.com/2010/02/decorate-box-with-scrapbook-paper-and.html

5) Using a Cricut or other machine (or just printing your lettering off on the computer and putting in the extra work to do letters out of it), cut out the letters "Date Night!" - or some other catchy phrase of your choice, depending on how you talk about and look at date nights in your marriage/home.
6) Paste or use Mod Poge to put the letters on the front of the box.

You may also want to put magnets on it to put it on the refrigerator or a filing cabinet or something.  Just decide where it is going to be displayed so that it is used and not just gathering dust as a fine new piece of art.

Second, the inside:
1) Buy a pack of 3x5 index cards (colored or plain, lined or not - it's up to you).  You need at least 52 cards!
2) Decorate them to match the outside of the box, or go simple - whichever you choose.  Just make sure that whatever you do doesn't get in the way with you GETTING it done and ENJOYING the PURPOSE of the box.
3) Divide the 52 cards into four piles: one for emotional intimacy, one for intellectual intimacy, one for physical intimacy (NOT necessarily sex, but building intimacy through physical things), and one pile for spiritual intimacy.
4) Decide what your budget for the year is going to be and assign an equal number of cards in each pile a $1, $5, $10, $20, etc. so that the amounts add up to your budget limit.  (This will also help you get really creative in your ideas.)
5) Fill in the cards in each pile with an activity that will help you build/create intimacy in that particular category.  There are TONS of great date ideas out there on the web.  You just have to find them and either use them to come up with your own ideas or tweak them to fit your budget/interests.  A few that I found are here, here, here, and here.  *NOTE* -- It is really important that you do this together.  I don't know about you, but my husband and I are NOT carbon copies of each other, and we enjoy different things to different degrees.  So you want to make sure that both of you are selecting things that sound appealing and give you a good mixture of things you will enjoy and things that will stretch you together.  For example, my friend and I came up with an idea to watch an episode of a dance competition and pretend you are the couple and try to imitate the dancing/dancers.  My husband does NOT dance; I miss it more than I can express!!!  So it would be a stretch for both of us (cuz I'm not professional dance competition material), but it would still be crazy and fun and a MEMORY that wouldn't cost ANYTHING!

6) Mix the cards up.  You can do this however you choose -- color coding, shuffling so you get everything at random, picking a theme for each month on what type of intimacy you want to focus on, choosing a fixed week each month for each type of intimacy, etc.  Decide what will work best for and be fun for you!!!

That's it!!!  And covering the box, depending on how tedious/experienced you are, could take you fifteen minutes.  Filling in the cards could be a fun date night to launch all date nights.  Oh, and you might want to put a wild card in there for the week of your anniversary!!!  And if any other holidays/birthdays conflict with the night of the week you have chosen for yourselves, have a mutual understanding that it will happen the night before or the night after the holiday.  Just make sure you are both on the same page and then . . . work done, play begins!!!

P.S. - Our camera has been out of commission (broken) for a few weeks now, so I don't have pictures of my box to post.  But I did find comparable pictures on other people's sites to give you a few ideas.