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Date Night Cards
My husband and I have found that the more time we spend actually together doing things, the more we enjoy each other’s company. Go figure right? So instead of getting him another pair of shoes or a wallet this Christmas, I created the gift I thought he actually wanted, a year full of date night ideas in a the form of a deck of date night cards. He liked this even more than he liked the Valentine’s Day gift for him I made last year!
The idea is that there are a total of 52 cards in the deck, all with a different date theme on them. Each month we’ll pick out four of the date themes (or 5 if it’s one of the months with 5 weekends) and then each choose which themes we want to personally plan for that month. So for example February looks like this:
Game Night – I’m planning a day date at Dave & Buster’s on half price game day Take A Class – my husband planned a cooking class for us Mystery Dinner – we’re playing a round of this escape room board game with takeout at home Learn Something New – we’re going to do this photo scavenger hunt around the house while my husband is learning how to use the camera
And as you might have noticed, we’re alternating planning the dates and alternating staying in vs. staying at home so that we don’t have to pay for a baby-sitter every weekend. In the ultimate list of date night ideas I’ve included with the printable, there are suggested dates for each theme on the date night cards in case you’re not feeling very creative that week!
What’s On the Date Night Cards?
There are 52 different cards with 52 different date night themes. I specifically left the themes on the date night cards fairly generic so that you could use a little creativity with your dates. So if you picked something like “Go Bowl,” it doesn’t necessarily have to mean go bowling. It could mean going out for noodle bowls for dinner, going and creating bowls at a paint your own pottery studio, or really anything you take it to mean. The idea is just to encourage you to go on dates with your spouse or significant other once a week for an entire year. And then once you’ve gone through the entire deck, just start over and come up with new ideas based on the card topics. Easy right? And if you need help with creativity, I put together a list of over 150+ date night ideas that go along with the date cards. Get the full list with the date night cards below!
What If I Can’t Come Up with Date Night Ideas?
If you can’t come up with date night ideas, have no fear – I’ve created the ultimate list of date night ideas with over 150 dates that correspond to the themes on the cards. Here’s just a little preview of the ideas in the list.
European Escape – make a European inspired dish together (like these Greek chicken thighs), go to a Scottish festival, go do a Tapas crawl, buy a book about somewhere in Europe and plan a dream vacation. Superhero Date – Do a version of this Superhero amazing race, play these superhero party games together, go see the newest Marvel movie (preferably dressed in these Captain Marvel costumes) Tour the Town – Go on a walking tour of your favorite places, take a guided tour at a museum, do a ghost tour, do a foodie tour. Get Wet – Take a bubble bath together, go to a hot springs, go to a bubbly water bar, take a walk around the lake, go to a waterpark. All About Animals – Go to the zoo or aquarium, have a sleepover and watched a movie like Zootopia or Christopher Robin, go to the arcade and play games until you have enough tickets to win your favorite stuffed animal.
Get the idea? I’ve provided all the themes and sample date night ideas but plan things that make the most sense to you and your partner! The goal is to do something different each week, get creative, and really just spend some time together outside of Target or grocery shopping.
How to Make the Date Night Cards
To create the deck, I just printed the free printable cards (you can get them via the form below) on white card stock, cut them out with my favorite paper cutter, and taped them to the front of a deck of playing cards using permanent double-sided tape. If you want to get fancy or have the date night cards last even longer, you could totally laminate them as well. But the playing cards themselves are pretty sturdy so you should be good to go with just the cards. The printable cards are sized so that they fit perfectly on a regular size deck of cards so no need to adjust. And the colors don’t mean anything other than I wanted a little color variety in the deck. Make sure to print out all of the cards because all of them are different and you won’t have enough to cover all the cards if you don’t print them all! And bonus points if you put them in a cute little recipe card box like this one instead of just tossing a rubber band around them like I did.
Download the Date Night Cards & Date Night Ideas
Enter your first name and email address below to get both the date night cards and the list of 150+ date night ideas! If you do not see the form to fill in your first name and email, click here to get to it. Once you’ve filled out the form, you’ll be taken directly to the printable PDF and receive an email with a link to the PDF to use later.