Date of the Month Club - February Date - A Day in New York

So the date that Rob decided on for the month of February was A Day in New York....I had planned it out pretty well with some changes to suit us and where we live....Here is the itinerary of the day...

• Hop in the car and drive to the train station (Hop on the plane and fly to New York)
• Catch a train to the Roma Street Parklands (Catch the subway to Central Park)
• Have a picnic in Roma Street Parklands (Have a picnic in Central Park)
• Walk over to Queen Street Mall and people watch (Walk over to Central Park Zoo and look at animals)
• Have some New York Slice Pizza (Self-explanatory)
• Catch the train home and watch Phantom of the Opera (Catch the Subway to Broadway and watch Phantom of the Opera)

If I told you that it all went perfectly to plan and was a wonderful and romantic date, I'd be lying....but we loved it anyway...here is what actually went down on the day....

First off, my best friend and Maid of Honour had stayed over the night before and we decided to let her crash the date....she is one of our closest friends and we knew she would add some entertainment for the day....We all piled in the car ready for the day and realised that we need fuel...so the plane trip had an unexpected stop at Sydney....It was at Sydney (the petrol station) that I realised I had completely forgotten to pack a picnic, so I raced to the shops next door and luckly found some bagel chips with the brand name of New York Style, grabbed some Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Grape Juice (Wine). We piled in the car again and we were off....A little while down the road, there were some roadwork's and the road to the train station was completely closed, so after another long delay we finally got to the train/subway station.

Our plane tickets

The train/subway station

Rob at the train/subway station

Eliza at the train/subway station

Me at the train/subway station

Rob and I in 'New York on the 'subway'

Eliza on the 'subway'

 After the train ride/subway ride, we arrived at Roma Street Parkland's.

The beautiful Roma Street Parklands

The beautiful Roma Street Parklands

Roma Street Parkland's is such a great place to spend the day whether your with friends, your partner or your whole family...I love that place...We found a nice seat next to the river that runs through the parkland's and set up our little picnic..

  

Rob walking on the stones over the river

 

Rob and I

Me looking down the river

 

The little waterfall near our seat

There was a duck in the river

Our little seat next to the river

The bagel chips

The yummy cream cheese

The grape juice (our wine hehe)

A new friend (above) showed up when we accidentally dropped one of the bagel chips...he ran for it, and then proceeded to eye us waiting for more...my friend and I put our feet up on the seat because we were a little scared of it...after a few minutes of staring at us the real fun began....it jumped on robs leg and all at the same time we jumped and stood on the seat....when we jumped up to stand on the seat some more of the bagel chips dropped on the ground and around 10 of this guys friends joined us in a matter of seconds! One big one jumped from out the river. We jumped off the seat and ran for our lives!!!! Eventually we found a better seat far far away from any lizards and finished out picnic...So much excitement!!!

It was such a hot day, that by the time we had walked over to Queen Street Mall (central park zoo), we were hot and sweaty..We found a seat in front of a store that had air conditioning blowing out the front and people watched for a little bit...We made up a game which we called tourist, shopping or lunch break. If you can guess from the name we were guessing if people were tourists, just shopping or on their lunch break....

After a while we decided to head home....it was so hot and we really didn't feel like eating a hot pizza so we skipped New York Slice. When we got home, we were so tired from the exciting and full on day that we pretty much just called it a day and decided to take a miss on The Phantom of the Opera as well....

The tickets I made for The Phantom of the Opera

Although it didn't go to plan, we had a great day and made memories that we will remember and cherish for a long time...cant wait to make some more!!!!

L.O.V.E. Blocks

I was looking at another one of my favourite websites for some ideas for decorations I could make for Valentines day and came across these...
I thought they were just perfect and realize that if they turned out alright I could use them in my decorations for my wedding coming up....
So off I went to the dollar store to get some boxes, when I came across canvas in many different sizes. I loved them so much, I decided to use those instead....and here is the finished product...

L is for the way you look at me 

(red scrap-booking paper, black L painted onto velum paper, red glitter stuck onto dots of glue and black marker to make the border)

O is for the only one I see

(red painted onto the border, cream scrap-booking paper, red corrugated paper cut into shape of O, brown chalk to smudge the edges of paper, butterfly embellishment)

V is very very extraordinary

(Black & red scrap-booking paper, red rhinestones, V painted on in cream paint, butterfly and rose embellishments)

E is even more then anyone that you adore.

(Cream scrap-booking paper, E cut out of red paper, purple ribbon, bow and heart embellishments)

Close-up of border on L

Close-up of red butterfly

Close-up of rose (this was from my jewellery making kit)

Close-up black butterfly

Gold embellishment on side of L

What do you guys think? I'm really happy with them, I might just keep them up all year round!!

Soon-To-Be Hubby's Christmas Present

Because we are getting married this year, my partner and I decided not to buy any thing for each other for Christmas last year....I still wanted to get him some thing so I went looking online for ideas of something that I could make....I found this amazing website that is now a favourite of mine and I encourage you all to check it out!

This is what I decided on making for him...

and this is the final result....

   This is the certificate he got.

This is the list of dates. He had to decide which date he wanted during which month.

These are the dates he choose (most of these date are ideas from the same website, I'll post photos once they happen)

This was one of the holidays (pretty self-explanatory, its a road-trip!)

This is the second holiday (for this one I will be turning our home into the bed & breakfast to save money)

This is what my Romance Rewards Tickets look like. I found a template online, filled out the details I wanted and then printed them up...I coloured them in and cut them with scissors that have a stamp effect and them lamented them all

 (forgot to put some random numbers on the side of this one)

My partner really loved it and could see I put a lot of work into it....So far we have had the back to school date, which I changed around to suit us...and this Saturday we are spending the day in New York, again I have changed it around to suit us..I love going on dates with my partner but we could never think of anything fun to do...I can't wait to plan these dates and I'm even more excited to go on them!!!

Christmas Crafts

This past year my parents decided to relocate to the other side of the world to spend more time with there grand kids, as us kids are not really kids any more. Although it was bitter-sweet to see them go, the timing was right. My older sisters have their new families, I'm starting a family of my own, and our little sister is all grown up and at university...

What does this have to do with Christmas crafts? Well I'm getting there...My mother was always the crafty one in the family...making scrapbooks and home made birthday cards. In the many years since she started all her crafts, she has managed to build up quite a catalogue of crafting accessories - stamps, stamp pads, stickers, papers, scissors, embellishments, etc... All of this had to go somewhere when they decided to move and it all went to me....I was giddy with excitement when I got the large and very full tubs (yes, that's right tubs!) home, and jumped right into figuring out what to do first....

Now with Christmas coming up, I decided I wanted to make my own Advent Calendar....

So this was the final result.....I found some great green envelopes, sealed them and cut them in half to make the pockets...

To make the numbers, I found some really cute number stamps and stamped out the numbers in red ink onto small square pieces of paper...the red ink I used wasn't coming out as dark as I wanted it to so I coloured the numbers in with a red marker afterwards...I found some great scissors that cut the edges of the square to look ripped and then rubbed the edges against the red ink pad... For some of the pockets I tied this cute red & gold ribbon in a bow and hot glued it on.

For some others I glued red & gold stars on the corner. It's best to use a glue stick for these, if you use a hot glue gun, the hot glue makes the star curl and shrink a little.

I found a really cute flower cutter for this one but I think they look like little snowflakes...again I just used a glue stick for these..

and finally I put some really cute Christmas tags on some others....

This was such a fun project, very rewarding to see it up in the shape of a Christmas tree as well....I printed up some Christmas themed activities and put one in each pocket as well as a little chocolate. Some of the pockets had Christmas trivia in them, some had instructions to make our own Christmas ornaments for the real tree, there are many ideas out there on the Internet for your own...Happy Crafting!!!