Valentine’s Day is a fun holiday that everyone can enjoy no matter their budget or skill level. Whether you are a mother looking for something that will entertain the children or you are a teacher wondering what activities you can do on February 14th that won’t break the budget, here are some suggestions for easy and affordable Valentine’s Day crafts.
Valentines notes
Valentine’s Day is all about sharing your love with those that you care about most. In addition to making your feelings known verbally, most people look for ways to more tangibly express their emotions. This process does not have to include roses and candy (which can be costly) in order to be meaningful. A thoughtful note carefully written can carry with it a level of significance to which store bought products simply cannot compare. A Valentine’s Day note can be a craft in many different ways. Finding or making your own decorative paper and thinking of a creative way in which to deliver your message can add to the fun and excitement of the day.
Valentine’s Day foods
Another easy, fun and affordable way to integrate craftiness and Valentine’s Day is to have a Valentine’s themed meal. Let’s use breakfast as a meal that you can turn into a Valentine’s Day treat. For breakfast, try to think of as many tasty ways as possible for integrating the Valentine’s Day theme and colors into your meal. Cook pancakes with strawberries in them and top them with strawberry or raspberry syrup. You could also top the pancakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. For a drink, pomegranate juice is a beautiful shade of dark red and can be a very romantic addition to a breakfast in bed for two.
If you are looking for more of a Valentine’s Day sweet treat, try making and decorating sugar cookies or cupcakes. Both are easy to make, you can buy sugar cookie dough already made at the store or you can take a little time to make them yourself. Icing is just powdered sugar, milk and butter with a little red food coloring and maybe some flavoring. A box of cupcake or cake mix is usually less than a dollar and you can make your own frosting for these too. If you want to make a more substantial desert it is easy to make a heart shaped cake with a simple round cake pan and square cake pan. After following the cake baking instructions on the batter mix box, cook half of the mix in the round pan and the other half of the mix in the square pan. After baking and allowing for the two cakes to cool, remove them from their pans and cut the round cake in half. Turn the square cake on an angle so that it looks like a diamond and add the halves of the round cake to either side of the diamond so that the long flat edges match. You have created a big heart cake!
Pictures and cutouts
If you need something more suitable for young children that is both easy and affordable, consider giving them pictures to color and cutouts to create a work of art. You can easily find Valentine’s Day themed coloring pages that are free to download from the internet. Do a simple search for Valentine’s Day coloring pages and print out the appropriate page with the graphic. You can also create all kinds of fun art by using shapes and cutouts that incorporate the Valentine’s Day theme. Use hearts to make paper people or use a cutout of your handprint to make a unique Valentine’s Day card.