You guys – today is my birthday! I am 43 years old, but I prefer to think of it as starting my 44th year of life because I love the number 4 and I just think even numbers are nicer. You can think that’s weird, I understand. 😉

Last night, Keith and I went on the most fun date!! We did the Valentine’s Maker Date Night at Idea Foundry Columbus. Idea Foundry is one of the largest maker spaces in the world, so we got to try so many new and exciting things. Lots of fire and heat and hammering and danger – the perfect date night for parents of teens. LOL.

The first random thing that happened when we arrived is that Keith recognized a woman that he went to high school with, so we got to catch up with people Keith knew. I also had a friend that was there with her husband, so we kept running into friendly faces. We had a wonderful dinner catered by Lindey’s (yum!!) and then it was on for 2.5 hours of creating! We knew going in that there were some projects we really wanted to participate in and some that weren’t the top of our list, so we had priorities!

Our first stop was the Plasma Cutting and Welding station – jumping right in to the sparks and fire. We made a metal candle holder which turned out pretty good. Keith did the plasma cutting to make the heart, and then we took turns welding. Keith was a much better welder than me, but I think with practice I could get the hang of it. 🙂

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Our next stop was a station to make a rustic photo holder. We got to beat the heck out of a piece of wood and then blow torch it to bring out all the texture and give it a weathered look. I think Keith *might* have enjoyed the hammering a little too much. It was definitely fun to figure out different ways to distress the wood and make texture. The blowtorch was especially cool – who knew hitting things with fire was so fun?!?

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Since we were already outside, we made our way to the forging area to try our hand at blacksmithing. Once again, Keith was excited to hammer, so I was in charge of holding the red hot hook we were making and making sure it stayed red hot by inserting and removing it from the forge. We had a little trouble staying in sync at this station, but we ended up with a pretty cool finished project. I would definitely do this again!

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After we were done being blacksmiths, we headed back inside and made “Create 2019” metal plates to put on our finished photo holder and candle holder. It was nice to do a relatively quick and easy project in the midst of the larger ones. We then headed upstairs to drop off our coats and have our professional photos taken. We had a fun time posing and really like how he captured our personalities. Plus, who doesn’t love origami birds?

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We were excited to get to make a wooden sushi tray at our next station. We had to do some sanding and a little cutting, gluing, and oiling. We also had the option to make our own chopsticks, but we already have some pretty special chopsticks at our house, so we did pass on that project. A sushi night has already been requested, so I see this getting some use in the near future. 🙂

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The last station we did was a tile art station. We got to use alcohol soluble ink, alcohol, and fire to create some new coasters for our home. We decided to use our wedding colors (ink colors sunshine yellow and cranberry) along with rose gold and gunmetal. It was definitely a station where there was little instruction, so it was not Keith’s favorite. I thought it was pretty cool how long the ink burned, and I could have done a couple more coats on mine if there had been time. I think they turned out pretty cool.

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Overall, this was an awesome experience that I would for sure do again. We are looking forward to using all of our creations and remembering the fun times we had making them. Thanks Idea Foundry for hosting such a creative and adventurous date night!