DIY conversation starters for Valentines or anytime

Recently, Richard and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. 15 years… how did that happen?!!

We booked a babysitter and went out for a fabulous meal. Once we had sat down and ordered, Richard pulled out tiny little folded pieces of paper and placed them all on the table. I was wondering if he’d lost it – it looked like he was emptying his pockets of rubbish!

Before I could say anything, he said “pick one and read it aloud”. So I did. As I unfolded the paper and started reading, I heard myself say ‘describe our life in 10 years time?’ I was still confused.

That’s when he explained to me that he had written up a load of questions and brought them along so we could chat about stuff that really mattered to us, rather than spend another evening chatting about practicalities like our daughter (which often becomes default conversation when she’s not there), our home renovation, the week ahead etc.

Instead we spoke in depth about our dreams, desires, our challenges, our future and so much more. He also included some funny questions so we ended up laughing so hard at times.

It was one of the nicest evenings of my married life.

With Valentines day coming up, I thought it would be so fun to play this game as a family. Not only this year but every valentines day – I’m planning to make it in to a Valentines tradition that I’ll video each year. It will be so fun to see how all our answers change over the years to make it even more special and turn it in to a fab memory.

There’s really not much to the making of these diy conversation starters as you can see. I’ve listed out the questions I used at the bottom of this post so you can print them out and cut them up.

I put my questions in tiny glass jars because it looks cute and evokes the whole message in a bottle idea. I had these jars lying around but I’ve had a quick look and if you want similar mini glass jars, you can find them on amazon or ebay.

Here’s a short video of us playing:

You can find the full list of questions at the end of this post.

These questions work for a couple or a family. I think they’d also be fun to play with close friends.

Here are a list of the conversation starters I used:

1. What do you enjoy the most about school/blogging/work?
2. What has been your favourite holiday? Why?
3. What is your most prized possession? (no gadgets or jewellery)
4. What is your earliest memory?
5. If you could visit any country in the world, where would you go?
6. How do you think your friends would describe you?
7. What achievement are you most proud of in your life?
8. What is the one thing you would like to improve about yourself?
9. If you could learn one new skill today, what would it be?
10. What do you dislike the most about school/blogging/work?
11. What do you think is your best talent?
12. What is the best thing that happened to you last week?
13. What is the best meal you’ve eaten in a restaurant?
14. Describe how you would want your life to look in 10 years time?
15. What has been the happiest day of your life so far?
16. If you could do any job in the world, what would you choose? Why?
17. What do you think is your biggest weakness?
18. Which country would you most like to spend 3 months in?
19. What has been your biggest mistake?
20. What superpower would you most like to have? Why?
21. List 3 things that make you happy?
22. List 3 things that make you unhappy?
23. If you could go back in time to any period in history, where would you go?
24. What one thing do you think I could be better at?