Idea

Homemade Romantic Gift{Date Night Fortune Cookies}

This homemade romantic gift just keeps on giving! Give your special someone a collection of dates to remember with our fortune-cookie inspired date night take-out box. Each cookie-message describes a date night for you and your partner.

If you're looking for a really romantic gift idea then you can't go wrong with a collection of romantic dates! Spending quality time together is the best gift for any relationship, and making a date night jar is a simple way to make sure you do. Your partner will love choosing the next date night and finding out what you've got in store for them! This little gift is easy to assemble and comes with free printable templates.

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Aren't these fortune cookies just so cute!

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Date nights don't have to be elaborate or expensive, they can even just be an evening walk together, or a DVD and pizza on a Friday night at home. The date slips in these cookies can be modified so you can come up with dates that suit your relationship and your budget!

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You can choose from the cookie-style printable (above), or the "I love you" printable template (below). Or use your own scrapbooking paper or other paper you have (e.g. sheet music, vintage book pages etc).

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These paper fortune cookies are really easy to make so it's actually a quick homemade romantic gift to assemble. Pop the cookies in a jar, or use our cute take-out box template to make your own date night box.

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We've come up with several different labels so you can choose one that matches your style :-)

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Takeout Box Template

Here's the template for the takeout box to keep with the theme of this homemade romantic gift! It's just the right size to fit 12 fortune cookies. You can also just re-purpose a container from home, so if you want to do that then skip this section.

Download Takeout Box Template

Print the template onto stiff card, or else print it onto normal paper and then trace it onto card.

See my Chinese take out box instructions for how to put it together. It ain't rocket science and I'm sure you'd figure it just from looking at the template :-) The only thing to watch out for is to make sure that you glue the side with the tab opposite the side with the slot, so that the box can close properly.

Here are the templates for the labels:

Labels - non editable

Labels - editable text

The editable version uses slightly different fonts because of some font licensing issues.

Origami Fortune Cookie Templates

To make each paper fortune cookie you will need a 3 inch (7.5 cm) circle of paper. You can use your own paper or download my free templates.

Origami Fortune Cookie Template - Natural Color

Origami Fortune Cookie Template - "I Love You"

Also, you will need strips of paper to write your messages on. The strips should be about 0.5 x 3.5 inches (1.2 x 9 cm). To make things easy, I've prepared an editable template for you where you can write your own messages and print them:

Homemade Romantic Gift: Cookie Message Template (editable pdf)

The messages in the template are editable, but I've pre-filled them with some silly ones for you:

Confucius says you are lucky man to have such a beautiful girlfriend (OK so it's not a date... but I think your boyfriend should be reminded of how lucky he is :-)

You will go for pizza and a movie with a beautiful woman

You will go bowling with a beautiful woman. Will you strike lucky or drive her spare?

You will visit a theme park with a fun-loving woman

You will go to a comedy club with a charming and witty woman

You will go salsa dancing with a sexy woman

You will go to a drive in cinema with a beautiful woman

You will go on a road trip with a beautiful woman

You will go ice skating with a gorgeous woman

You will see a show with an enchanting woman

You will spend a night by the fireplace with a ravishingly beautiful woman

You will have dinner at that new restaurant with an elegant woman

It's really up to you to make this homemade romantic gift personalized and special for your partner. Use these ideas as a starting point, but take some time to think about what dates would be fun for you to do together.

Origami Fortune Cookie Folding Instructions

Assembling this homemade romantic gift is actually pretty quick once you've printed off the templates. Here's a little video Tobias made showing how to fold the fortune cookies:

... or you can follow my step by step photos below instead.

Step 1Place your 3 inch circle of paper with the colored side facing upward. Fold the circle in half to make a crease, then unfold again.

Step 2Turn over the circle so that the blank side is facing up. Make sure that the crease from the last step is horizontal. Fold the circle in half from right to left, so that the fold you make is at right-angles to the crease from the previous step.

Step 3Hold the paper by the curved edge with your left hand. With your right hand, push inward in the middle of the folded edge, at the same time as pulling at the top and the bottom. The aim is to bend the cookie into a C-shape.

Here's what it looks like from another angle:

Bend the paper all the way into a C-shape like this. Then squash down on the "hinge" of the C. This will help the cookie stay folded and not just pop open again.

Here's what I mean by squashing down on the "hinge", seen from another angle:

You'll know when you've squashed down far enough when the middle of the C pops into a slightly different shape, like in the animation below:

Once the cookie has been squashed like this, it stays in shape without any glue:

Step 4You might have noticed that we haven't put the fortune message in the cookie yet. That's because it's easiest to just focus on getting the folds right without having to fiddle with the fortune message.

To put the message in, just unfold the cookie, put the fortune message inside, and re-fold it. You'll find that re-folding it is really easy because all the creases are in place already.

And here are the finished cookies with the fortunes inside. What an easy homemade romantic gift!

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Don't forget to put them in the cute take-out boxes, or you can re-purpose another container or jar you have in your house already. Happy date night!

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