We love Valentine’s Day. Our favorite holiday after Halloween. Growing up, I loved making Valentines for friends at school and looking at all the ones my friends made for me. When I had kids of my own, I renewed my love for Valentines – but last year, our school stopped allowing them to be exchanged at school. We still manage to have a lot of fun at home, and find ways to celebrate with friends. I found these cute Valentine doughnuts at Rocco’s for the kids as a fun surprise treat.

We do fun manicures at home with hearts on our nails!

We made these fun crafts for teachers last year. Pick up some paper mache heart ornaments from your local craft store and paint on a thin layer of mod podge. Add tissue paper squares and cover with another layer of mod podge for a shiny clear coat. This was for our visual arts teacher, so we hot glued some letter beads onto it spelling out “in my art era”. Cute as a Valentine, can double as a Christmas ornament.

We found these super cute conversation heart beads on Amazon and used them to make our own headbands. We bought plain headbands on Amazon, although you could certainly use ones you had laying around the house.

Add a little hot glue onto the headband to secure the beads.

How cute are these?

Another fun gift idea would be these Valentine Stanley cup tags. They’re so cute for teens and tweens. You can have them personalized with a name too! They’re available for 30oz. and 40oz. tumblers. Made by SHRH designs.

I saw Amber make these Valentine boxes and thought they were so adorable. After watching, we made our own version – check them out on my Instagram below.

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Our signature snack for Valentines are chocolate covered pretzels. We make them in all colors and with all different kinds of sprinkles, how cute are these ones with the word ‘love’?

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Valentine’s Day is coming up quickly. I wanted to show you some cute baskets that I put together for the kids last year to give you inspiration as you shop this year. The wire baskets are from Target, and I use them for a bunch of things year round. The acrylic tags were personalized with the kid’s names and I found them on Etsy. The seller is on a break, but I am sure that you could find something similar. I love these Kid Made Modern heart water color sets. You can find other brands on Amazon. The heart goggles aren’t available, but the same brand offers a heart style here. I picked up a fun note pad from TJ Maxx and one of those light spinners that my kid’s love. The big hit here was the unicorn chapstick and the jelly beans!

The boys are always a little harder to shop for, but I found these cute shirts at J.Crew saying “Heartbreaker”. They don’t have the same baseball shirt style this year, but here is a similar shirt. I love the Rey to Z hats, you can get them with lots of different things on them: letters, big bro, little bro, auntie, etc. You can’t have any gift basket in this house without Pokemon cards, and of course a little chocolate (and only the best, Gräem for the win!)

For the littlest, we picked up a fun art kit that the big kids could help her with, a hat – because we are into backwards hats these days, but also a few hair bows and clips that we had been saving for a while (we went though a period of not wanting to put anything in our hair) and are just getting into fun stuff now! Throw in some delicious chocolate from Gräem, a simple heart tee from target, and a fun necklace and she is one happy kid!

Are dessert boards a thing anymore? Asking for a friend. Either way, I still love them. Added in all of my favorite things and if they aren’t in anymore…well more for me I guess Homemade chocolate covered pretzel rods, macarons (and these days you can pick them up at Whole Foods if you’re in a pinch), my favorite cookies from Bisous Sweet (it doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day for me to get these, frankly, any day that ends with a ‘y’ will do!) and some red candies to fill in the empty spaces.

Don’t forget to show your gal pals the love this Valentine’s day. I love single serve bottles of bubbly. Pop on a cute tag (these are my favorite – Little Notes from E. Frances Paper) and drop off as a little reminder of how fabulous you think they are!

One of my favorite bakeries made these cookies years ago and I had to reshare them because they are so cute! They have closed their doors for walk in retail, but you can still order cakes online!

Make sure to check out Love And Flour, their cakes are beautiful.

I love a good m&m cookie on Valentine’s Day, they make a bold pop of color!

I love a good sheet pan meal, pancakes are no exception. Use your favorite pancake recipe but make on a baking sheet. Cook at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes. They come out light and fluffy and you can cut them out into cute shapes with cookie cutters – and everyone gets warm pancakes at the same time!

Don’t want to make sheet pan pancakes, try making them in muffin tins. My second favorite way to make quick meals for the whole family – and everyone gets to eat a hot meal at the same time! My kids think that eating anything with a toothpick is more fun, so we found these cute heart food picks to use and we let them dip them in whipped cream and sprinkles! What is your favorite pancake topping?

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We always dream up new Valentine crafts for our friends. We picked up some inexpensive totes from our local craft store and used our Cricut to outline friend’s names on the bags. We threw in some Crayola fabric markers and it was up to each friend’s imagination to create the bag of their dreams. Perfect for snow gear for school!

For a school craft, we had all of these left over ceramic yogurt cups we were looking to reuse. We decided to make a heart flower bouquet. You will need ceramic yogurt cups, pipe cleaners, cut out hearts, paper shred and play dough.

First step, cut out five of the same size heart shapes. We used a heart shaped cutter, you could use a Cricut or trace hearts and use a scissor. Fold hearts in half. You make multiple flowers in different sizes or colors, use 5 hearts per flower.

Add glue to one half of the heart and stick to one half of a second heart.

When you get to the last heart, secure around pipe cleaner to make the “flower”. Add a ball of play dough in the bottom of the yogurt container to secure the flowers. Push pipe cleaner flowers into play dough to allow to stand up straight. Add as many stems as you’d like.

Share in the comments how you use your left over yogurt containers!

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I usually don’t have time to make homemade brownies, so I fancy up some box brownies. (Throw in some candy or add on some home made frosting…) But I found myself with some extra time the other day and decided to make some fudge brownies from scratch. I found a recipe from Karli, cookiesfordaaays on Instagram, and hers looked amazing.

The recipe couldn’t have been easier to make and they came out delicious. Perfect for a dry run for Valentine’s Day.

You can keep the brownies plain, as is, or add frosting. Check out her recipe here.

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Desserts are my favorite – I think you should eat them first. We bake desserts for friends for all the holidays, it’s our love language. I usually don’t make sandwich cookies of any kind, because I just can’t handle the extra step, but we had some fancy jam, and, these seemed like a fun idea for Leah.

My neighbor from growing up is the best baker. She makes these iced sugar cookies that I adore. She’s even given me the recipe, but I can’t make them taste as delicious as she makes them. So I patiently wait until Valentine’s Day, or my birthday, and I don’t even share them with my kids, that’s how much I adore them.

Cupcakes are our go to dessert to make in our house, the design options are pretty endless. We made these piped hearts with sugar crystals and plain vanilla frosted topped with jelly hearts.

When you want something besides a food options, I give those too. I made this up for my little. A heart belt bag from Target, sparkle boots from Target, Ooly scented stamp able markets, ooly chroma blend watercolors, Construction Site: You’re Just Right, an ice cream truck notebook, some fun bracelets, and some heart glasses that you add glow sticks to.

Another popular dessert that we make on Valentine’s Day are m&m cookies.

If you are looking for a fun and festive dessert, but are short on time, don’t be afraid to take a short cut. We bought mini ice cream sandwiches and rolled them in different sprinkles. They look like a million dollars, that you spent so much time on them, when really, it was under five minutes in the kitchen (most of which was spent unwrapping the paper).

I love all the containers from Bullseye’s Playground. I picked these up last year and filled them with all kinds of fun and colorful Valentine candy.

Another close up of the cupcakes, this batch in chocolate.

Last year Blackbird Doughnuts offered these cute chocolate chip cookies shaped like doughnuts.The kids adored these. Hope they bring them back for this year.

Another container from Bullseye’s Playground – we filled this one with our sprinkle cookies.

This glass Tupperware was from Target as well, but not the dollar section. Although I did pick up at the end of the season, so they were deeply discounted. One of my other shortcuts (shhh don’t tell anyone) is to get store bought brownies if I am short on time, and top with a delicious salted caramel sauce. It makes them seem very fancy. If you have a few extra minutes, but not a ton of time, you can fancy up some box mix by swirling in some sauce or peanut butter!

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I love a good m&m cookie on Valentine’s Day. They just give a good pop of color and a nice hearty cookie with a crunch on the outside that I love. Our neighbors love these too, they even request the crunchier the better

I know that snackle boxes are the new thing, but I love a good old fashioned muffin tin. Why not use what you have and not go out and get something new. And mine just happen to be pink!! Fill with all your favorite candy – a real mix of salty, sweet, gummy, hard, chocolate, crunchy, and maybe even throw a bowl of popcorn on the side just for good measure.

Usually I am a strict vanilla with vanilla cupcake kind of gal, but I do make exceptions on Valentine’s Day. I do love a strawberry frosting and the garnish, well the sky is the limit. I love these XO chocolate covered crackers, I love the Valentine Candy that is available, m&m’s, anything Reese’s….and while I don’t actually like the taste of conversation hearts, they do sure make a cute decoration.

These Crescent Ridge cupcakes come as a six pack and can be in your weekly delivery for $16.50 a package. They start with a brownie base and are topped with vanilla or cookie dough ice cream. Top with some whip and sprinkles and you are good to go! Chef’s kiss.

They did at one point last year do a collaboration of a red velvet ice cream whoopie that was kind of knock your socks off….this year they are doing a gingerbread one, which I like….just not as much. They also have a peppermint ice cream sandwich option which is enough to rock your world. Did I mention they can get delivered to your door?

Ok, Simple heart sugar cookie heart cut out. My neighbor growing up makes these. She gave me the recipe. I follow it to the precise T. They NEVER come out the same. Im convinced that she left one key thing out so that I can’t ever make them as good…. The frosting is light a sugary, but not TOO sweet, and when I was at college and I was missing being at home….I would legit eat the whole tin in one sitting. But let’s not unpack all that psychology right now.

As I mentioned in a previous Valentine post, I rarely have time to make from scratch brownies, so I like to fancy up box brownies. One way would be to cut then out into shapes. I do like this option, but there is a lot of waste. And by waste, I mean, add to my waist-line. But I cut this batch up into hearts and I think they are just thge cutest things in the whole world.

Keep them plain, as is, of you can add a little frosting. Make from scratch, or if you are in a hurry, put premade frosting into a piping bag and add a little to the tops of the hearts and cover with fun sprinkles.

Here are some fun rainbow ones I tried to make cute.

Another fun thing that we sometimes do at our house is sheetpan pancakes. SO we tried to make then and then cut then out and make them into fun shapes because I certainly can’t compete with my son’s friend’s dad who can whip up colored pancakes every weekend. I mean, we all have our strengths…

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I always like to pick up discounted Valentine merch at the end of the season. I found these at Home Goods last year – filled with gummy candy, which I promptly threw out. The piñatas themselves were still good and we filled them with out own treats (fresh ones!) to give to friends this year. How cute are they?

If you can’t find these, you could also make them inexpensively. Pick up some heart shaped boxes at the end of the season (you can find them at Michaels for about $1) and then cover with fringed tissue paper to make your own.

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I was chatting with my hairdresser and she was telling me about how she tried to make the viral chocolate chip cookies for her boyfriend, but they turned out a total bust.

I asked her if she tried to make one of the cookies home made, knowing that I had tried that too, and made the same mistake. So much for trying to be fancy. Do yourself a favor and just buy the premade cookie dough – the chocolate chip and the cut out sugar cookie hearts. Place the sugar cookie hearts on top of the chocolate chip cookie dough (I got the heart sprinkle ones, but as you can see, you couldn’t even see the cute sprinkles), and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Pillsbury cookies aren’t my jam, but boy, they are cute…and the kids loved them!

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Chinese New Year falls on January 29th this year, the year of the snake. It is said that people born in the year of the snake love with their entire hearts. White rabbit candy is very popular, a milk based candy with a soft, chewy texture and a vanilla flavor.

Last year was the year of the dragon, and we did some fun crafts for school. We made paper chain dragons.

Cut out long strips of red paper in equal lengths.

Staple the first strip of paper into a circle and begin making a paper chain. Make as long as you’d like.

Tape the head of the dragon to the first link and the tail of the dragon to the last link. for extra stability, tape or glue popsicle sticks to the head and tail and make the dragon dance.

These toilet paper roll dragons were a fun craft. You will need: empty toilet paper rolls, streamers, pom poms, eyes (either stickers or googly eyes), construction paper, and double sided tape.

Measure out the width of the toilet paper roll and then roll the construction paper to fit completely around the roll. Use double sided tape to attach streamers to one side of the paper (the long side). You can cut into squiggle shapes or leave straight).

Add two pieces of tape to the short sides of the paper.

Roll the paper around the empty toilet paper roll and secure with the double sided tape.

This is what your finished product should look like.

Add two small pieces of tape towards the back for the pom pom eyes and two pieces of tape near the streamers for the nostrils.

This is what the final product should look like. Glue googly eyes to the back set of pom poms or use eye stickers.

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Sometimes you have people come into your life, and they turn out to be very special people. We are fortunate to have so many of them. We have a neighbor, who told us about our house when the owner’s were thinking about selling it, and we bought it before they put it on the market. Turns out the woman who sold it to us, used to be my math teacher (small world). Same neighbor introduced us to a friend of hers, who was just getting back into the working world after taking some time off. She has been helping my son, and he ADORES her. From day one, she just gets him. She is patient and calm, and she has increased his confidence tenfold. For that, I can never repay her. I rave to her to all of my friends.

As if that wasn’t enough, for the holidays, she gave him this wonderful gift. I love that she shared this tradition with him. Apparently, it is a Scandinavian tradition that if you feed the birds on Christmas or New Year’s Day and then you will have good luck in the New Year. It has practical origins, in that the farmers would hang bundles for the birds on Christmas, hoping that they would stay out of the barn where the harvest was stored.

So thank you Ms. Krista, for all that you do!

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