Valentine's Day 2023

I love celebrating holidays and milestones. I don't need a huge budget or a ton of spare time. I just like to do little things here and there to make the time we have together memorable.

I made a couple of little gifts for family members this year. I found the glass vases and the pink shredded paper at the Dollar Tree. I added some winter greenery that I cut from a garland and some sprigs of sparkly red Valentine's Day garland. The cute gnomes came from Hobby Lobby and I just used snips to shorten the metal stakes they came on.

I delivered one of them to my mom and dad and one to my oldest son and his fiancee with a little mailbox full of candy.

Mailboxes have been a part of our Valentine's Day family activities for as long as I can remember. We've had various styles over the years, and this year I used a mix of mailboxes I had in my stash.

When I was putting out the Valentine's Day surprises, I put some balloons up on the wall with packing tape. Of course, they stayed up just long enough for me to grab my phone and take one photo.

The decor in the rest of the house was pretty simple too. I put out some framed printables from a bajillion years ago. In fact I'm pretty sure the last time I put them out we were living in this house the first time around. They're still cute.

I put some garland over the door between the family room and the dining area and decorated it with some items I've had in my stash. Back in 2018 when we first moved out of this house and into a townhouse I had a Valentine's Day tree outside my front door. This year, back in our previous home, I pulled out that decor and added some new things I found at Hobby Lobby.

I decorate this tree for a lot of holidays. It fits nicely on one of our family room end tables and makes the corner of the room festive. Plus it entertains the cat, so.........

I threw some extra heart balloons on the kids' beds, which my youngest loved. She wouldn't let me toss them after the holiday.

My 14 year old son pretends he doesn't notice or care, but then he will randomly come out with something that tells me he remembers the little things we do in our home, and I know we are raising him with a standard he will set for his own family someday.

I made some care packages to send out to the kids who aren't at home right now too. Daniel is finishing up welding school so I filled a little mailbox for him, and filled the rest of the box with extra candy. I just stalled on an idea for anything to make for him.

For my two coffee addicts, one in Long Island at college and one in Maryland with her hubby, I made some tee shirts. Some time ago I bought a Starbucks SVG on Etsy. I used it for these tees, and made it "valentines-y" by adding the curved love language text. Unfortunately I had trouble finding the right green in iron on vinyl, and I ended up using a "sport flex" product that I absolutely detest. I was able to finagle most of it, but there were a few spots that the vinyl stretched during peeling. I would NOT use this product again. Luckily I was making these tees as sleep shirts for my own kiddos and not for sale.

I filled out their care packages with their mailboxes filled with candy, some window clings for Henry's collection, some sloth Valentine's Day socks for Allie, and these magnets I made from the little felt envelopes I used in the decor.

My husband has an annual tradition of sending me what I consider extravagantly expensive roses. I think he really used to enjoy sending them to me at work, but these days I'm spending my time at home where I'm needed more.

Life can be stressful and hard. It's important to me that we do what we can to enjoy the sweetness of life too. I hope you do the same!