by Leslee Stewart

Looking for Valentine gift ideas that won’t break your heart (or bank account)? Try a few of these and your special someone will be saying, “I Heart You!”

1. Breakfast in Bed – Surprise your sweetie with heart-shaped pancakes! Buy a box of pancake mix and make according to directions. Using heart-shaped cookie cutters, cut hearts in various sizes from pancakes. Spread Nutella (a chocolate hazelnut spread – you can find it in the peanut butter aisle) or their favorite jam over the warm pancakes and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve with fruit and coffee or milk.
   
   


2. Drive-Out Movie – Load one of your honey bunny’s favorite movies (or a romantic one you both like) on to a laptop or iPad. Fill a basket with snacks (popcorn, drinks, candies, fruit), grab a blanket and head to your favorite sunset watching spot. Maybe it’s the beach, a park or the top deck of the airport parking garage. Wherever you go, be sure to take time to enjoy the movie, the view and each other.
   
   


3. Be Mine, Valentine – Remember the Valentine boxes you used to make in grade school? Now bring that idea home! A couple of days before Valentine’s Day, have everyone in your family decorate their own paper lunch sack with hearts, stickers and markers. Then give them whatever tools they’ll need to make Valentine’s for everyone. On the morning of Valentine’s Day, deposit the mail in everyone’s sacks and enjoy reading the notes together over breakfast.
   
   


4. I’m a Poet, Don’t You Know It – Nothing says Valentine’s Day like poetry. Even if you aren’t Longfellow, you can still pen a lovely little ditty for your schnookims. Or maybe make an acrostic out of their name. Whatever you do, just remember….Roses are Red. Violets are blue. Write your cupcake a poem and they’ll thank you.
   
   


5. Mix it Up – If you were a child of the 80s then you know the power of the mix tape. Back in the day, many a teen spent hours in their rooms copying the perfect mix of songs onto a cassette tape to gift to their first love. And nothing says love quite like a compilation of songs about, well, love. Thanks to geniuses like Steve Jobs, iTunes makes creating a mix CD a breeze. Load up a playlist with all the songs that make you think of your sweet pea, and burn baby burn.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Leslee Stewart oversees communications for GFC Beautiful. She is a wife, stay-at-home mom of two boys and former communications executive. She openly admits she owns too many throw pillows, loves junky old furniture and can sing all the parts of Bohemian Rhapsody.