Pre-Planned Date Night Basket: A Tutorial

 I originally saw this idea here via Pinterest.

This blogger, Shannon, planned and paid for dates in advance so she and her husband wouldn't waste time wondering what to do for their date night. They just picked an envelope and went! I loved this idea. After Matt went crazy and bought us an awesome new couch for our anniversary, I knew I had to do something special for him, too. So I made us a Date Night Basket! In the original post, Shannon actually made one date for  each month and labeled them accordingly, but I wanted ours to be more flexible, so I just labeled them 1, 2, 3, etc. and I only did 8 because I was pressed for time/that was all I could think of for the moment.

 And I, of course had to embellish the basket and envelopes a little with ruffles, hearts, garland, and embroidery.

 Each envelope had a double felt and burlap ruffle.

Then inside each date envelope, there is an info sheet describing the date along with gift cards, cash, and anything else we would need to go on the date described.

Here's Date #7, I believe.

I used the photo flyer template in Microsoft Word 2010 to create all the info sheets inside each envelope. Each one had different color schemes, descriptions, and pictures to match the date.

Want to make your own Date Night Basket??

Let's do it.

Materials Needed

Large envelopes

Basket (I got mine at target on sale!)

Microsoft Word (some sort of flyer template that allows you to insert pictures and add descriptions)

Gift cards or cash, and anything else needed to prepare for the date

Fabric for ruffles, garland, and sign on front of basket (burlap, felt, and tulle)

Mod Podge (or other glue to adhere the labels to the envelopes)

Embroidery thread and needle

Hot glue gun

2 pin backs

Sewing essentials

Plan Your Dates

If you decide to make your own Date Night Basket, remember: the dates don't have to be elaborate and can even be free! One of mine was Late Night Coffee/Catch up on DVR Date and I threw in some fun coffee flavors.

I found lots of date night ideas here (site found via pinterest again. My favorite thing to do on there is type in what I want to the Pinterest search and I find the coolest stuff!). Some of her ideas are a little too much for Matt and me, but I did use her book store date idea for Date #7 above (it even has free printables that go with it). 

 Flea Market Date. Ha. There's a huge one close to us and we've never been so...

On the date nights I planned for us to actually leave the house, I had a gift card or cash ready for however much we would be expecting to spend there. I tried to pick things that we either haven't done or don't do that often. 

Once your dates are planned, and materials are gathered, create your word docs for your info pages and print them on a color copier. I took mine to a Fed Ex Express and had them printed. 

Don't forget to print your labels, too, for the outsides of the envelopes. 

Here's a sample of the labels I created for the envelopes:

You can download your own Date Night Labels here. 

Cut and Mod Podge your labels onto the center of each envelope.

Then create a ruffle for each envelope (cut two fabric strips, both should be as long as double the width of your envelope, one thinner than the other and ruffle them at the same time) and glue on. For a more detailed post on how to make double ruffles and glue them on, see this post.

Embellish the Basket

There will be a post later about the heart and pom garland seen on this basket. For now let's make the fabric label for the basket.

Create a wide ruffle. 

 Cut two strips of fabric about 48 inches long and 5 inches wide, stack them together, and ruffle down the middle.  I used tulle and burlap

 Form the ruffle into a circle so that the center of the circle is all touching.

 Sew right sides together and set aside. 

 For the oval in the center, cut two ovals of felt and cut out your message for the center in a contrasting color of felt. To stitch the message on, I used an embroidery running stitch with 2 strands of embroidery floss.

 Once the message is stitched on, stack the ovals on top of one another, wrong sides together and do another running stitch around the outside border. If you want, you can stop here.

 I wanted my border to be a little more fun so I added in a looped running stitch. The tutorial for this says to use contrasting thread for the looped thread, but I stuck with the gold. 

(The links that provide the embroidery stitches go to a wonderful site full of embroidery tutorials! I found  the site via Mique of 30 Days Blog via Pinterest)

 Once all your stitching is complete, hot glue the oval to the center of the ruffle circle. 

Trim any fabric that sticks out too far and you're done!

 I wanted to attach the fabric label to the basket without ruining the basket in case I ever wanted to reuse the basket for something else. I figured out that if I stuck a pin in through the weaves it would stay, so...

I hot glued two pin backs onto the wrong side of the fabric label in the places I knew they would need to go in order for the label to be centered an in the right place.

 Hang it on the basket (don't worry about clasping the pins- they'll stay) and you're done!

If you make little garlands like I did, you can pin them to the fabric lining of the basket just inside the rim of the basket in the front. By doing it this way, you can detach it anytime you want to use the basket for something else.

 Give it to your love and watch him be super surprised. I love this idea, too, because once the dates are all done, you can always fill the envelopes again! 

And even though I made this for my love for our Anniversary, how much fun would this be as a Christmas present?! Or birthday?! 

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! Thanks for reading!

Linking to the parties (including here and here and here) on my sidebar!

Embellished Gift Bags {A Tutorial}

 So I might have gone a little overboard here. I made a lot of embellished gift bags. I ruffled, I flowered, and I put a bow on them. Now you get to learn how. Check it out.

 Once I got going, I couldn't stop. Seriously. Ridiculous. I even coordinated fabrics with different types of embellishments...

I might need an intervention. These are so easy and fun. 

I got this idea because I always get so mad when I walk into Target and have to spend $3.99 on one cute gift bag. In this post I talked about how I decided to just get the 10 for $5.99 pack and embellish my own for only 59 cents a piece. Well. I went to this fun little hometown discount store, Ollie's, and got a different pack (the teal you see) 10 for $3.99!! 

That's 39 cents per gift bag, even after embellishing if you use your own scrap fabrics!!

Wanna make some? Let's do it. 

Beware. This post is long and full of pictures. It's only to help you (and to help me) be more clear on how to do it. Don't be overwhelmed- this is so easy.  

Materials Needed:

About 20x7in of tulle

About 20x5 in of chiffon

About 20x3 in. of cotton

About 20x1.5 in. of cotton

gift bags

hot glue

Sewing essentials

For the ruffle gift bags, I basically used 4 layers of ruffles as labeled above. All layers are strips cut to be double the length of the bag. The first layer is about 5 or 6 layers of either tulle or mesh and is 7 or 8 in. wide (about an inch in from each side of the bag). The second layer could be chiffon to add more texture (or you can just use cotton) and is about 4 or 5 inches wide. And the 3rd and 4th layers are cotton coordinating fabrics, the 3rd layer is 3 inches wide and the 4th layer is 1.5 inches wide.

I found this great bolt of tulle that is a perfect width to start out with at Michael's. You can always cut yours, too. 

Cut 5 or 6 layers of tulle, set your machine to the highest setting on tension and the highest stitch length on your machine and sew down (for more ruffling techniques and tutorials go here).

 Once the stitches are in, to add more texture cut the one layer of tulle at a time so that the layers are different widths. I started with the top layer the smallest width and worked my way out.

It'll look like this when you're done.

 Then pull on the basting stitch so that it's ruffled enough and is just a little longer than the length of your bag.

Use your glue gun to draw a vertical line up the center of your bag and place ruffle on top, ensuring the seam of the ruffle goes on the line. 

Once the ruffle is glued down, you're safe to cut off the thread that you pulled to create the ruffle. (Not pictured.) Use your glue gun to draw a horizontal line (the same width as your fabric) on the top and bottom of your bag, then fold your fabric under and press down. 

Make the rest of the ruffles the same way (minus the cutting the layers into different widths like you did with the tulle) and glue on top.

And done!

Materials Needed:

4x60in of fabric (for flower)

6x6in square of coordinating fabric (for leaves)

1/4 yd or less of felt

gift bags

hot glue

Sewing essentials

I first made flowers kind of like these in my Easter Flower Onesie Dress Tutorial and you can also see a tutorial for them here which I used as a guide when making my flowers on the Easter Flower Onesie Dress. I did these a little differently in that I did not make the folds in precise places as the target pillow tutorial suggests, and I made them more loose than the ones in my tutorial by not stitching across the entire flower at the end (only the center) making the flower a little more free-flowing).

Decide whether you want thread that blends in mostly,

or contrasting thread and then gather supplies.

 First cut a strip of fabric about 4x60 inches and then press in half long ways. 

Draw a circle around a piece of felt. My bowl was a perfect size because it took up most of the bag. This circle will be your guide for sewing.  

 Lay the strip of folded fabric along the circle with the middle of the strip kind of on the line. 

Sew straight down the strip until it's time to turn and follow the line of the circle. Make sure your needle is down before you move your fabric and fold your fabric over 90 degrees. Sew directly over the fold and once you're in the middle of the strip, needle down, turn your fabric so you're ready to sew straight down the fabric again.  

Continue this over and over. As you work your way around each layer of the flower, work your way in as well.

Once you get to the center, turn the end of the fabric strip under itself and sew over. Then for added texture, sew a spider web-y star pattern over the center by sewing forward and backward at different angles. Cut any loose threads.

Your flower will look like this.

Cut extra felt from flower by folding the "petals" back and cut close to the flower so the felt doesn't show. Sew flower aside.

Now let's make the leaves.

 Cut curved triangles.

 Sew triangles onto felt with contrasting thread starting at the bottom and sewing all the way around using a 2/8 or 1/8in seam allowance.

 Sew to middle of the bottom of the leaf, then with needle down turn the leaf to pointy side down. Sew down an inch or so. (Now we're going to make the decorative stitching that will be the veins of the leaf.)

Needle down, angle the leaf away from you to the left and sew down and then backstitch to the original line and stop. Needle down, and angle the leaf in the opposite direction and do the same thing.

It should create an upside down Y as pictured above. 

 Continue that pattern until you get to the the top and then backstitch all the way down the middle vein (it's ok if it's messy) until you get to the bottom of the leaf. Snip loose threads. 

Cut excess felt from leaves and then stitch leaves together with a few stitches in a V-shaped form. 

Glue the leaves down first and then glue the flower on top.

Done!

Now this tutorial isn't mine. I borrowed Kate's Bow Tutorial from See Kate Sew, except I did not round the corners as she did and instead of stitching the middle piece of fabric, I just hot glued it, as seen below. 

 Don't make fun of my ridiculous mess of  a glue gun!! 

Then just hot glue the bow wherever you want on your bag.

On this particular bag, I was using a fabric with a birdie print so I had to save some to put on the bag. :)

Get creative! 

And done!

Now I have all these bags finished and ready for any kind of occasion almost! All of it created for only $5.76 and I have brown bags left over!

Just think about all the goodness you could create for Christmas! 

Thanks for reading! 

Linking HERE and Six Sisters Stuff