On Valentines Day & Last Minute Gifts

Valentines Day. People seem to either complain about being single (and apparently sitting alone in their underwear and eating Nutella to drown their sorrows, according to my Facebook feed), gush over each other in public with far too much enthusiasm, or simply not care. Not exactly the most successful holiday of the calendar, is it.

Personally, I have been one of the people who brush it by the wayside. Chris and I have date nights every other week, so we don't feel the need to celebrate this day with anymore than a minor acknowledgment. Plus, the next two weeks of February sees both our birthdays AND our anniversary, so we aren't really missing out on anything!

Admittedly, we did go out last night for dinner and a show (meatballs on Swan St and Nina Las Vegas Presents, to be in fact). Tonight, Chris is at work, so I have plans for dinner, the gym, and starting a new tv show. 

Dinner at the Meatball & Wine Bar // One half of Cosmos Midnight // Nina Las Vegas

However, this morning I felt inspired to whip together a little gift of sorts for Chris. I have seen similar things online before, and it has always struck me as a sweet idea. So in a matter of ten minutes I was able to put this little guy together.

What's that Reanna? You did something creative AND tried to set up a photo?

All this involved was a permanent marker, a little bottle/jar, paper, a piece of string, and some coloured popsicle sticks (left over from when I made a Hobbit themed terrarium…). The idea is that whenever we feel like going out together, we can select one of the "ideas" I have already stored in here. It could be at random, or with a bit of careful selection (some ideas being a bit more pricey than others!). So far I have popped in a few bars and cafes we have always wanted to go to, some we have already been to but have been meaning to check out again, and a few less specific adventures we have always aspired to do. I'm going to encourage Chris to add a couple of his own when he gets it! Forever the ideas man.

Simple, but considering I made this about two hours ago, I am relatively happy with it.
What do you think about the whole Valentine's Day saga? Pro or against? 

Either way, I send love to you all!

Reanna.

A Cheapskate's Photo Journal

At the commencement of 2014 I was feeling refreshed, energised and inspired. I had a million ideas running through my head of things I wanted to achieve, new things to try, and places to go. While I didn't end up setting any goals, I did actually end up extracting some of these whirlwind ideas and putting them into play (a rare occurrence for me!).

One of my summer holidays goals was to take more photos of Chris and I. Considering we have been dating for nearly three years, we probably only have a handful of photos of us together, and of those less than half would actually be decent! I have also been pondering how I can better utilise all these photos I take of my day to day life on my iPhone. I've been known to always sneakily pull my phone out in every situation to take a quick snapshot (most usually of my food), but then I never do anymore with it than perhaps post it on instagram. Inspired by the mindset of simplicity that Elsie has towards scrapbooking over on A Beautiful Mess, I decided to make a photo journal of 2014 in order to utilise all these pictures.

I wanted to create something that would suit my lifestyle. I would love to have copious amounts of supplies but a) I don't have the money, b) I don't have the time to spend hours creating beautiful pages, and c) I am really, really not that creative! With this in mind, here is what I ended up picking up:

Yep. A notebook from Kikki K, a bunch of sticky notes, glue, scissors, and a pen. As for my photos, I simply print them out at the library (I do have a printer at home, but have you seen how expensive printer ink is?!).

With simplicity in mind, and about half an hour, I was able to throw together a few pages from out first week of January. Chris and I went for a random camping trip, which was a perfect way to kick of the year. 

They are no masterpieces, but I love that at the end of the year I will be able to flick back through this book and reminisce over these days. I hope I can keep this up! I aiming to print photos over roughly once a week and setting aside half an hour or so to put together the pages. Are you trying anything new this year?

Reanna.