Champagne for a year Gift

congratulations!

One wedding gift I like to give if I am in the wedding or for those close friends that enjoy the bubbly is 12 months of champagne basket.  Who says the party should stop once the wedding is over? This gifts lets the bride and groom celebrate each month anniversary during the first year of marriage. It is a cute and easy project and depending on your craft skills you can make this gift as elaborate and customized as you like!

All you need is: 

-a large sturdy basket (those bottles get heavy)

-tissue paper, bags or plastic air cushions to help protect bottles/give support to display

-12 mini champagne bottles they usually come in packs of 4

-ribbon

-hole puncher

-12 tags for months- i used cute scrapbook paper 

-champagne glasses (optional addition)

First find a large sturdy basket that will hold all 12 bottles. I liked using a rectangle basket, the bottles seemed to fit inside it the best. Next design the tags.

making the tags

The tags were pretty easy to make. I used scrap book paper and made circles with numbers in publisher program...sorry I can't get it to upload a copy to add to post. I attached them to the bottles using curling ribbon.

these had quite a distance to travel so the cases came in handy

To fill the basket I used tissue paper (lots), plastic bags, and the air cushion pillows you get in shipments to hep prop up the bottles and keep them from rolling all over the place. 

so cute!

You can also make a sampler of different champagne types and add glasses too! I've also made tags that are related to the seasons or themed around their wedding colors. The sky's the limit on how you want to customize this. 

*12 months of celebration champagne sampler*

I have to give credit to my sister's friend Cassity for this awesome idea. Thank you. It has been a blast making these baskets and I hope you can use this idea to!

World Date-Indian

For our next world date we thought it was time to bring a little heat to this frigid weather and enjoy food with spices and some activities of India. We started the date off with chai tea lattes and wandered around World Market to collect some goodies for the rest of the date!

favorite brand and sauces. Usually at grocery store too!

There are a lot of different options for great Indian food in the area but I found a recipe for Naan bread and wanted to try our hand at making our own food. I wasn't as adventurous as trying to make my own curry, but did branch out to try the Korma sauce (Tikka Masala is usually my go to) over shredded chicken and basmati rice. This is my new absolute favorite! It's a smooth coco-nutty sweet and savory all at the same time...hmm maybe I'll make that for lunch this week.

finish product sooo good!

Making Naan (unleavened bread) was way easier than I thought. Ingredients are super simple and it is so much fun to watch it bubble up. Find the recipe here: Budge Bytes Naan The only differences we did was use warm water to prepare the yeast and made our pieces a lot smaller to speed up how many we could cook at a time.

getting the dough ready

bubble bubble

While we waited for the dough to rise (takes about 45 min) we played chess. Did you know that chess is thought to have originated in Eastern India in the 6th century. It was based on four divisions of military-infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. Over time those would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop and rook. I was demolished but looking forward to brushing up on some techniques and playing again.

After dinner we thought yoga would be great to work off some of that yummy food. Both of us practice but in all our time dating we've never done yoga together. It was tons of fun! I got a couple's yoga book for ideas of two person positions.  Some of the positions ended us up in a tangled heap I think they would work only if you were part gumby! I can barely do tree by myself what was I thinking trying to balance holding on to another person ha! We also did a  few vinyasa ideas from online and overall we had a great session .

For a few starter ideas check out cheat sheets or other yoga positions from ashtangayoga.info. They have a great finishing series and each position comes with pictures and descriptions. Great tool for beginners, refreshers, and on the go.

Some of movies set in India

Top left to bottom right: Slumdog Millionaire (great story), Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (quirky but cute), Jodhaa Akbar (amazing 3 hour bollywood film: the fight scenes, costumes, sets it's all so grand!) Eat Pray Love...book is better but it doesn't have Javier Bardem swoon* 

To end the night we watched Slumdog Millionaire, there are so many different movies set in India or Bollywood films. Bollywood is like Hollywood except way bigger producers that makes Hindi films. Usually they have a lot of dance, great costumes and a love story. I love them and the cheesier the better sometimes. If you want to see a list of top 10 bollywood films check out this page.

We had such a fun time on this date and will for sure be keeping this meal on regular rotation as well as trying to find time to practice yoga together more often.

Want some background music while cooking? I searched top Bollywood Songs2013 on youtube lots and to choose from and set the mood!