Homemade Gifts for Valentine’s Day

Though many spouses and significant others fret over what to buy or what to do for Valentine’s Day, with the right mindset, the holiday can be a great boon to our romantic relationships rather than something to worry over.

The answer is not diamond rings, fancy restaurants, expensive bouquets of roses, or even lacy boxes of chocolate. It’s about making the effort. It’s that simple, or it should be. The best gift, the warmest sentiment, the most romantic thing we can do is care enough to go out of our way to do something special.

With that in mind, we obviously want to express how much we value our partners. That doesn’t mean we have to empty the savings account. It just means we have to listen, spoil, pamper, and treat our loved ones with our energy and effort.

The Card

The simplest of Valentine gifts is possible the card. Sure, it’s easy and relatively inexpensive to buy one, but the same might be said for making one yourself. A Valentine card need only have a straightforward sentiment—Be Mine, Love, Kiss Me—and some basic visual clues like hearts or flowers. A heartfelt note only ups the ante here, but it isn’t necessary.

Sweet Treats

Even if a homemade sweet isn’t quite as tasty as a store-bought version, the fact that someone cared enough to spend the time to gather ingredients, mix them up, and create a treat for you. Well, there’s nothing that tastes quite as sweet as that. You could bake some cookie sandwiches, dip some strawberries in chocolate, or make personalized mug cakes.

Hopes & Memories

One of the greatest gifts partners can give each other is to simply take the time to share all the nice things you remember doing together, expressing what you appreciate about each other, and planning a future that looks bright for both of you. Write them down in a list. Or hide little sweet nothings around the house where you know he/she/they will find them.

Homecooked Meal

A classic Valentine activity is going out to dinner, typically at a fancy restaurant. There is a lot to be said for that. However, cooking a meal for your partner can be even better, particularly if you aren’t the default chef in the couple. A Valentine’s meal could be breakfast in bed, a candlelit dinner, a picnic lunch, or just dessert. There are loads of recipes.

Bathtub Basket

Often, without much idea for what to do, the Valentine’s gift basket comes into play, and more often than not, that involves a collection of bath stuff: bubble bath, bath salts, and so on. What could make this gift much more impressive would be to make all the elements yourself. Soothing bath salts are easy to make. Bath teas are a simple surprise. Bath bombs, natural foot soaks,  or just running/preparing a bubble bath with a side of wine and chocolate.

Arts-and-Crafts Bouquet

Source: Daniele Adami/Flickr

Flowers are the classic Valentine’s Day “surprise” that everyone expects, so why not make them more surprising? Rather than going with typical flowers, the bouquet can be composed of a medley of unexpected blooms, such as thoughtful messages, origami roses, kids’ crafts, hopes and memories (from above), and so on.

The Honey-Do List

The notion of a honey-do list can fill a bit antiquated and stuck in defined gender roles. That said, most of us have a few things we know that our spouse would love us to do, yet we put them off because, well, we don’t really want to do them. That’s why it would mean so much to get these things done in time for Valentine’s Day. It’ll set the mood right from the get-go.

A few of these homemade Valentine’s Day gifts should certainly set the stage for a wonderful day—and life—together. There is so much more to be said for expressing our love through what we do rather than what we can buy. It’s not that a piece of jewelry or night out never hits the mark, but it’s remembering that many times there are other, often better, ways to express our love.

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• 7 DIY Valentine’s Day Gifts From Upcycled Stuff That Aren’t at All Romantic
• How to Make Healthy Heart-Shaped Treats for Your Furry Valentine

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