Love is in the Air

14 days until Valentine's folks! Now I could very easily get on a rant about how Valentine's Day is a highly commercialized holiday with extreme pressure and marketing aimed at spending money to prove our love, and how the socioeconomic status of a couple tends to be compromised for the sake of unnecessary materialistic purchases. I could also rant about the importance of self love and independence and how this holiday that displays unrealistic standards for expressing love for others and the need to be paired up is ridiculous.

But I won't.

Instead, I'm going to embrace this holiday filled with love. I am going to love and be loved. I am also going to share some pretty awesome Valentine themed DIY projects with you to help spread the love this February 14th. For those of you playing the solo role, no worries, I have some ideas for you too!

Start your Valentine's with a 'heart-y' breakfast. hehe. Learn how to make heart shaped hard boiled eggs over on annathered. It looks super easy to do, and very thrifty. You could even make heart shaped toast with strawberry jam, or heart shaped pancakes!

Love is in the air with these colourful decorative hearts. Kids can help out to, as long as they have adult supervision with the iron, or have a grown up do the ironing for them, depending on their age. Over at skiptomylou  you can find out how to make these crayon shaving hearts. 

Ok so this is where you can make sure a certain card company or two won't pocket your money this Valentine's Day. Learn how to make your own pop up card at RobertSabuda , just scroll down towards the bottom for this pattern.

How precious is this Valentine's Day tree? You could create hearts out of construction paper, or any paper around the house really, with little love notes on the back. Take a stroll through the park to find a tree branch, you could paint it, or just leave it natural. I really love this idea from skiptomylou .

Get ready to set the atmosphere at the dinner table tonight. This pretty and easy to make. Find some scrap lace (check out local thrift stores) or paper doilies and using a mixture of 1/3 water 2/3 white school glue, 'paint' the lace/doily onto the glass votive. Allow enough time for this to dry and set (perhaps you could do this the night before).

When the moon hits your eye like a heart shaped pizza pie...that's amore! Personally when it comes to cooking, I don't think there is any other meal more fun to make than a pizza! And one 'decorated' with hearts is even better. If you are a vegetarian, or you are like me and just don't like meat on your pizza, you could make heart shaped tomatoes to replace the pepperoni. (Of course you can use your imagination and turn any topping into a heart, or form heart shapes with peppers, mushrooms etc)

Who doesn't love ice cream sandwiches? These heart shaped, chocolate and strawberry treats are too tempting to resist! Mint Design Blog  has the 'scoop' on how to make this cute love dessert (A heart shaped pizza followed by this love filled dessert? Sounds like a great feast for Valentine's Day!)

Create your own love fortunes by making homemade fortune cookies! Alphamom has a recipe if you want to use your baking skills! All of the ingredients may be in your cupboards already which is very wallet friendly. If you don't have access to a printer, cut up some paper and write your own fortunes!

Not so keen on baking? Why not get crafty and make a toy fortune cookie?

Martha Stewart has a step by step tutorial on how to create felt fortune cookies. I like how she fills them with chocolate kisses so you can still indulge your sweet tooth!

I'm a HUGE fan of making tents so when I saw this, I knew I had to make it. Even when Valentine's is long gone, I may have to keep this little nest idea for rainy days and a good book. I found this love tent over at Design Sponge.

Head on down to the beach and find some small, flat rocks. (If you don't live near a beach, just try to find some small rocks, or pebbles). You only need a handful. Then pop over to Craftbits and learn how to make wish stones. You could bring these into your love tent and make wishes with your significant other. Or you could make a love nest for yourself and make some wishes just for you!


Ok, so you don't have kids, or a significant other to share this with.  Maybe you're pretty upset because of this and now you don't even want to do these things for you. Well..fret not my loved ones! Tomorrow, I'll be posting a Valentine's Survival Guide, and trust me, it's going to be fun!