My First Oversized Poster Print!

To be perfectly honest, one of the main reasons I wanted to start decorating with black in our new house was because of my obsession with chalkboard prints. :) I know that I share this obsession with a lot of people right now and that is fine by me! Now that we finally have some black in our kitchen and dining room (cabinet hardware, shelf brackets, etc....so exciting!), I thought I would make my very own chalkboard print for Christmas. I used Isaiah 9:6. I had this verse on my bible cover when I was like 9 and have been obsessed with it ever since, haha. Just a side note. :)

I made this to fit a cheap-o Ikea frame that I've had for about a year now. I actually think it looks really nice when spray painted with gold leaf...not too cheap at all! I may spray paint it a different color eventually because it was hard to get the gold to look even, but we will see.

This was also my first time to print one of those super popular over-sized blue print posters from Fed Ex. It cost me all of $3 for a 20"x28" black and white poster!

(Aaaaand you can see me. Looking awkward. I think I was trying to duck from the tri-pod, haha)

The quality is actually pretty nice, except for that it didn't print quite as much of the chalkboard texture as I would have liked. For the price though, I am A-okay with that. ;)

I put this on our Craigslist buffet which now has a new home in the dining room. I LOVE it here! 

I may end up moving this poster to the mantel, but I wanted to get a few quick pictures today because I have listed it in my shop! It is available as an instant download 8x10 printable OR as a custom-sized print. (Perfect for these oversized posters!) Please head over there to check it out!

We just got our NEW faucet in the mail today and I am in love! Hopefully Bryan can install it tonight and then I will take some pictures. And then after that maybe I will get around to decorating the rest of our house for Christmas! Y'all, I can't handle our house right now. I am looking at pumpkins and ornaments in the same room and it's driving me nuts. 

Yay! Two posts in one week. Go me! Have a great rest of your week.

The Date Jar

Bryan and I love to go on dates, the problem is, we are absolutely horrible at making the time for them! We are also extremely boring with our date choices....basically it always ends up being dinner and a movie (which is still one of my favorites even though it's overdone).

To remedy this problem, I decided to make a "Date Jar" with pre-made dates already thought out and planned for us to go on. This month, we have blocked off every Saturday night for a date, so each Saturday, we just draw one of the little cards out of the jar and head off for a fun evening together. I'm hoping that scheduling and planning these things ahead of time will help us continue to make Date Night a priority for the rest of our marriage.

I designed these cute little cards to write our dates on. After printing and cutting them out, Bryan and I sat down and wrote out creative date ideas to fold and place in our Date Jar. 

I made the cards in two colors so that we could differentiate between "spending dates" and "free dates", since we only budget so much money to spend going out each month. Although this was our method, you could use the two colors to designate dates that he planned or she planned, dates that are at home or out on the town, or dates that are during the day or at night. 

(Our Date Jar isn't see-through, so I put a few of our folded date cards in a bowl for blog pictures....just so you know!)

We got many of our date ideas from these great sites:

Love Actually

30 Ideas for Date Nights at Home

The Dating Divas

And in honor of Valentine's Day being this week, I am posting these fun printables for my sweet blog readers to download HERE (You can also click on the image below). This is my first printable to ever post, so if it doesn't work, please let me know!

Now go off and enjoy a date with your hubby or boyfriend! Happy early Valentine's Day friends! See you all tomorrow :).