It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I love to entertain, and I especially love entertaining with a theme. I surprised my Rock n' Roll Buddy with a road trip themed breakfast for Valentine's Day this year, and I had an absolute blast planning each and every step of it.
(I got the idea well in advance of Valentines Day, so I got a little carried away with details.)
(Thank you, Pinterest. You are both a blessing and a curse.)
My Rock n' Roll Buddy and I both have lots of places in the good ol' U.S. of A that we want to see, and we've made it to a few of them already. We've been debating the pros and cons of traveling in an RV as opposed to using a car and hotel stops, and the idea of buying a motor home instead of renting one. The biggest plus I see with a motor home instead of a car or flying, is the fact that you can buy bigger(and more) stuff on your trip to schlep home. (And I have no problem accumulating stuff on any and all trips.)
Anyway.
I decided this year to capitalize on all of our recent travel conversations and bucket lists of places to visit with a road trip theme for Valentine's Day. I started with a vintage colored map of the US. (Can I just pause a moment here to tell you how much I heart Amazon Prime?) I glued it to a piece of sheet insulation from Home Depot, and then put it in a simple frame.
I added manila colored paper blocks bullet pointing the trips we have taken together (these were actual vacation type trips, and not the usual trips to see family)
I placed flags on the locations, and tethered the boxes to the flags with embroidery thread.
I personalized it a bit further....
I wanted it to be a complete surprise, so I hung it in the hallway just before breakfast, and I made sure to have him sit on the side of the dining table where he would not be able to see into the hallway.
I built the entire Valentine breakfast theme around the map, however it was the last present I presented to him, so let me change gears here now.
The more I planned this theme, the more ideas I came up with and the more all-too-perfect (In my humble opinion) gifts I came across. (The internet has made the world of shopping far too easy.)
I set the table with a matching map. (Okay, truth be told, I mucked up gluing the map the first time to the insulation board. If you do this idea, us a simple glue stick, and not heavy duty spray glue. I used the spray glue the first time and it bubbled up hideously for some reason. I managed to peel it off, but it was a bit crumpled, so I quickly ordered another map, and used the first one as my table cloth....it works, am I right?)
To add to my travel theme, I used a couple of my vintage suitcases, and then made a couple small signs with road trip quotes.(You know I am a quote junkie...)
I wrapped the accompanying gifts in my signature brown kraft paper, with more quotes....
I got a copy of one of my personal all time favorite movies, The Long, Long Trailer, with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez Jr. (Which was why that package had Lucy and Desi sitting behind the wheel on the tag for that package)...
And a couple of too-perfect books on road tripping...
...and then I added a sweet little box that gave him instructions on how to find the fabulous map...
...hanging in my hallway.
Oh! After he opened his Valentine prezzies, we had a yummy Valentine breakfast of heart shaped waffles smothered in butter and warm maple syrup....
In the end, I am 100% positive fairly certain that I had far more fun plotting and planning and prepping for all of this than my Valentine did in receiving it, as he tried to figure out where I was going with this Valentine's theme, (Oh, the vast difference between men and women.) as he was much more interested in the waffles. (I can't really blame him...they were yummy!)
