I talk about date night subscription boxes A LOT on my blog…I know. 🙂 For you long-time readers, I hope you’ve had the chance to try at least one of them out by now! However, if this is the first you’ve heard of them -or the first you’ve heard of Crated With Love– let me tell you more!
KP and I have been lucky to test out a a few of the Crated With Love boxes now (so I have a pretty good feel for the product and what you’re likely to get each month). Here is their latest box, Jan. 2017 – Foun-date-ions, and our review.
(Please note/disclaimer: while this post was sponsored by Crated With Love, all opinions below are fully mine. As with all my date night subscription box reviews, I seek to give honest reviews and helpful feedback to anyone who might be deciding a date night subscription box service for themselves. I hope you find this post helpful!)
Crated With Love is a date night subscription box service that delivers pre-planned at-home date night to your door each month. Each box contains activity and challenge cards as well as materials needed for your date activity.
One thing that I like about Crated With Love right off the bat is that they’ve offered some unique date night activities. These aren’t your usual “indoor picnic” type of dates. This month’s box, especially (ahem, ‘egg’specially) was not something I’d ever imagined as a “date night activity”, but it totally worked!
Upon opening, here’s what came in the box:
– a golden plastic egg
– a handful of paper party straws
– 2 spools of washi tape
– a spool of twine
– 2 magnet strips
– a handful of cards: 4 Challenge cards, 2 Challenge Activity cars, 4 Letter cards, 2 Goals cards, 2 Envelopes, 1 Suggested Recipe card.
We started with Challenge 1, where we had to describe each other with the first words that came to mind. I’m gonna be honest, neither KP nor I are typically a “fit the right word into the box” worksheet type of people, opting instead to talk in circles about something before getting to, and finally figuring out, our points (we’ve, um, had many a struggle in the communication department because of this over the years, ha ha) and while I slightly balked at this card at first, I ended up enjoying the activity.
Choosing words for each other was easier than I’d thought -we must know each other well at this point or something, huh?- and it didn’t take us long to decide our mutual words either. “Creative” (aka ‘just a little bit weird’) being one of them. 🙂
Challenge 2 ended up being the main activity of the date. I don’t know about other couples, but for us at least, it took a couple hours! Using only the items in the box (straws, twine, tape), we had to each build some sort of contraption that could contain and protect a raw egg from breaking after being tossed up in the air and landing on hard ground.
Now I’m not really a competitive person – until I’m met with a challenge that I think I’m SUPPOSED to able to win. And then I want to win. Not gonna lie, I wanted to win this. Because I knew I could…if I could just figure out what what to do. Hmm…
The building materials given to us were not the easiest things to work with. But, of course, that’s where the challenge was – in how to creatively make do the best you can with what you have.
Finally, we each settled on our contraptions. I created a triangular structure with another smaller, inner, triangular basket to hold the egg. KP eventually went with a rectangular prism of sorts for an outer cage, but then relied on protecting the egg shell by wrapping it up with tape and using the tape roll itself to secure and steady the base.
Then, the moment of truth came to test our contraptions out. I’m not gonna lie, my competitiveness had came out and I was pretty confident that MINE would work and my egg would be fine. And that KP’s egg would be shattered. Lol. We went outside to the driveway, KP threw mine up in the air…and then I threw his…and…
Guess what?
We BOTH failed!
(and *I* was the one who failed the most. {insert emoji for hanging my head in shame} )
There went my egg, er, eggo, I mean ego.
At this point, it was after midnight and getting pretty late for us. We looked over Challenge Cards 3 and 4 which talked about setting goals for yourself and your relationship and how to encourage each other in those goals. Though we didn’t end up filling in the goal cards that night, we did talk about some of the things we wanted to accomplish in the coming year and called it a night.
But we couldn’t leave as failures. We had to try again. There would be a part 2 to the date. Oh yes there would.
A couple nights later, we sat down and together worked to create a new contraption that would protect a new egg. Not knowing if we had enough paper party straws to complete the challenge, I supplemented with a few red ones I had on hand. Hopefully this still counts as following the ‘rules’!
We went with another triangular prism, this time deciding that they key was to better cushion the egg in the center cage. So we cut up a bunch of small pieces of twine and used them as padding.
And guess what?
#WhatIsIt? #SecondTimesTheCharm? #DateNightPart2 #WishUsLuck #pleasedontbreakthistime #workingtogether #datenightathome #datenightbox #cratedwithlove @cratedwithlove 🙂
We failed. AGAIN. Just barely. But still.
Whah, whah, whah….
Oh well, whatever. We tried! We decided that had we put in even more padding at the top of the egg cage, then the cushioning may have worked. In fact, the contraption is still on our kitchen counter in case we decide to try it just once, just to finally get a success under our belt, lol.
OVERALL THOUGHTS:
– I like that Crated With Love offers activities in each box designed to get a couple talking about their relationship.
– KP and I have done several Crated With Love boxes so far and they’ve really been upping their game in coming up with unique ideas for a relationship-building date night. I like that I never know what to expect…but we always enjoy it.
– While Crated With Love has the lowest price point of the other date night box companies, I don’t ever feel that they skimp on quality of their products. I assume that they’re able to offer a lower price point because they don’t include unnecessary items to try to “beef up” their boxes – their dates’ worth is in the quality of the activities planned, not the quantity of the items in the box.
– If you’re considering trying out a date night subscription box, but don’t want to break the bank when you’re not sure if it’ll be for you, I suggest trying Crated With Love.
Crated With Love General Info:
Cost/mo.: $20 – $25/mo
Shipping: FREE
Promo code: n/a but $5 off with THIS LINK
Best For?: Seriously Dating, Engaged, Married
Thanks so much Crated With Love for allowing KP and I to have a fun date night at home with your Foun-date-ions date night box!
You Might Also Enjoy my other Crated With Love reviews:
October 2017: You Complete Me
April 2017: I Love the 80s!
March 2017: My Kaizen Crush
February 2017: Stuck on You
January 2017: FounDATEions
April 2016: Tea For Two
Related posts:
1 Comment on Crated With Love Date Night Box Review: FounDATEions (Jan. ’17)
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Im glad you took the time to inform us. I had no idea there were so many of these!