I don't normally brag, but this was one of my better ideas. I had been thinking of proposing to Kari for a while, but I'm never one to do anything in a normal sense. There were a million ways to propose, but I wanted to do something that more than likely had not been done in the history of mankind. I may be wrong, someone else may have already done this, but I've never heard of it, so as far as I was concerned it was a first.
It was Thursday, May 4th. Kari and I had just gotten home and had to get ready to go to my family reunion for the weekend. We talked as normal about our day and how things had gone. Well, when Kari got up to get ready, I told her to wait a minute. I had purchased two scratch off Florida Lottery tickets and wanted to play. I got the "Hot Peppers" one and she got the "Match Maker". Just like any woman, Kari had to look at the back of it (I guess she was seeing if it was a Hallmark or not?). I didn't win anything on mine, so Kari started scratching hers.
Her's was "Match Maker" - Match any 3 items in a row, win that item : Match 3 diagonally and win the bonus prize. So she started scratching. The first square was a diamond ring (it was like a tic-tac-toe board), the second a set of airline tickets, and the third was a cruise. The next row was $5000, a diamond ring, and airline tickets. Kari was happy that she got two diamond rings in a row. She was so excited that she got two diamonds in a row she skipped to the last box. She won a diamond ring!
She started screaming and jumping that she won a ring. I told her I didn't believe her as no one ever wins those things, but lo and behold she did. They were even diagonal, so she still had the bonus prize. I urged her to scratch that off.
When she scratched off the bonus box, the message "Kari, will you marry me?" was revealed. All she could say for the first few minutes was "What did you do?". By the time she looked up, I had the ring out.
Click to enlarge*
-= How I did it =-
With the help of the folks at the Florida Lottery, I found out what card stock and inks I needed to make the scratch off card. I then proceeded to make the Match Maker on my computer using Photoshop 5. I went to Kinkos and had it laser printed and gave it to her father, who just happened to own his own printing business. He had the image transferred to the correct card stock, made the back look just like a regular ticket, then had it coated with a UV protector (the glossy stuff) and the latex ink applied. He even went so far as to add the perforations on the top and bottom so it had the look of being torn off. Until she scratched off the bonus box, she had no idea what was happening. The ticket looked as real as possible.
Thanks to Jerry & Gloria Winchester (her parents), the folks at the Florida Lottery, and Christi Cannon, the girl I was eating lasagna with when I came up with the idea.
- Robb
*This is the computer generated picture I used to print the ticket. Due to the nature of the print, I couldn't scan the actual ticket. It didn't show up very well. However, since this is the file that was used to make it, it is identical with the exception of the gold latex which was added digitally.
rolled out on
Tuesday, May 11, 2004 9:56 PM