Valentine’s Day is one of my FAVORITE holidays! It’s probably tied with Christmas I love it because it’s an opportunity to show those friends and family how much you love them. Plus there are so many fun things to decorate with, crafts to make, goodies to bake, cute cards to send, etc.

We want to have a BIG GIANT Valentine Link party to celebrate! Nineteen of my favorite bloggers are participating. We know YOU have some awesome ideas to share and I LOVE seeing new inspiration! Simply link up your inspiring projects and creative ideas below. Feel free to link up new projects as well as any past projects that you want to share. At the end of our link party, we will feature some of our favorite Valentine projects and ideas! Link party runs from January 24 – February 3rd.

When you link up to our party, it will show up on ALL the following participating blogs:

Design Dazzle | Not Just a Mommy | | Uncommon Designs | Ginger Snap Crafts | a girl and a gluegun | Commona-My House | Confetti Sunshine | BellaGrey Designs | Clean and Scentsible | hoopla palooza | Giggles Galore | I Dig Pinterest | Happiness is Homemade | Paisley Petal Events |My Design Dump | Bloom Designs Online | Me & My Insanity | Bombshell Bling | Jojo & Eloise

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I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned my love of anything paper here on the blog. In case I haven’t… I LOVE PAPER! I love cards, invitations, stationery, gift wrap, notebooks, notepads, gift tags, gift bags, calendars, art prints, etc. etc. I attended the National Stationery Show in NYC last year and was just in heaven! So many beautiful products created by oh so talented designers. I’m hoping to include more of my paper obsession here on the blog and I thought I’d start by sharing some fabulous Valentine’s Day cards created by some of my favorite companies I met in NY. Click on the shop name below the image to be directed to where you can purchase these beautiful cards!

1. The Paper Cub  |  2. Sugar Paper  |  3. Farewell Paperie  |  4. Sycamore Street Press  |  5. Pei Design  |  6. Parrot Design Studio  |  7. Ink Meets Paper  |  8. Meant To Be Sent

Do you have a favorite design??? If I had to choose one in this group, I think I’d choose the pink Sweet Valentine Wishes from Sugar Paper. I am IN LOVE with everything Sugar Paper does!!

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Okay, I’m almost done with Valentine’s Day posts…maybe one more and that’s it!!  I can’t help it though, there’s just so many dang cute ideas for this fun holiday, I just can’t stand it!  Too bad you don’t have time to do all of them, huh??!!

So today I’m rounding up some fun Valentine’s Day treats and sweets you can make and give to special people in your life to show how much you care.  Anyone loves a sweet treat now and then, right?  Give them to teachers, friends, neighbors, grandma & grandpa, aunts & uncles, etc.  Or just make them for your own little family for a special treat.  I promise you’re going to be hungry after reading this post.  As always, click on the link to take you to the recipe…here we go!

Strawberry cream cheese cookie tarts from Betty Crocker

Valentine pops from Glorious Treats via The TomKat Studio

Valentine’s Day s’mores from It’s a Crafty Life

Brownie covered Oreos from Picky Palate

Sugar cookie squares from Cooking Classy

Strawberry milk whoopie pies from Sprinkle Bakes

Marbled red velvet cheesecake brownies from The Novice Chef

2 Ingredient Strawberry Fudge from Cookies & Cups

Easy Cake Mix Cookies from Sugarbelle

Sweetheart cupcakes from All Recipes

Strawberry Ice Cream Sandwiches from Recipe.com

Brown Sugar Blondies from Baked Perfection

Valentine Jello Hearts from The Hungry Housewife

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pops from Glorious Treats

Valentine Donuts from Love From The Oven

Valentine’s Day Pretzels from Write Click Scrapbook

Strawberry Hot Cocoa from Two Peas & Their Pod via Babble

Valentine’s Day Smoothie from Make & Takes

Love Potion Floats from Pizzazzerie

Hot cocoa with heart marshmallows from Martha Stewart

Okay, so who’s hungry now??  I am!!  I hope you have a fun weekend and maybe you’ll even make one of the recipes I’ve shared.  Let me know if you do!

The post 20 Valentine’s Day Treats & Sweets appeared first on Paper Crush.

There are so many cute tags and treat toppers that talented ladies have created for Valentine’s Day that I just had to share some with you!  All you have to do is print out the tags, fill a little bag with candy or homemade treats, tie the tag on with some cute ribbon and you’re set!  Use them for a school Valentine exchange, or give them to family, friends or neighbors for a little Valentine’s Day surprise.  For the toppers, simply print out the topper and attach it to a ziploc baggie – simple & sweet!  Here’s some of my favorites from around the web.

Cute tags from The Rubber Punkin

Absolutely LOVE these designs from Hello, Good Gravy.  There’s two sets – one from 2011 & new ones from this year.

Attach this tag from My Digital Creations to anything sweet.

Fun colored Valentine tags from Paper & Pigtails via Catch My Party

Darling circle tags from Party Box Design.

If you’re giving something homemade, these tags from eighteen25 are perfect!

Fun “love notes” from Lauren McKinsey in either pink or red.

You could add these tags from Our Best Bites to popcorn or any other sweet treat.

I’m obsessed with chevron and these party circles from Dimple Prints at Tatertots and Jello can be used for tags as well!

Pretty tags from Art by Julie H

Contemporary gray and pink tags from Draw It Modern

Small bag toppers from Makoodle

Here’s some Hershey’s kiss stickers & cute bag toppers from Shindig Parties To Go!

Darling toppers from Thirty Handmade Days.

Black & red topper from Living Locurto

I hope you get to use some of these great tags and toppers for your Valentine’s Day treats!  I still haven’t decided which one(s) I’m using…they’re all so cute!   Tomorrow I’ll share some yummy treats you can make to go with these tags!!

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I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m the Room Mom for my 1st grader’s class and I love it!  What’s not to love about planning parties, right??!!  So I’ve been trying to figure out what we’re going to be doing for our Valentine’s Day Party and I thought I’d share with you some ideas for school parties, in case you’re helping with classroom parties as well!

Okay, I know this first activity isn’t very original, but the kids just LOVE to decorate sugar cookies, so that’s one of the activities we’ll be doing.  Give the kids 2 cookies each to decorate, adding their own frosting, sprinkles and candies.  You could have pink, red and white frosting to mix it up a little bit and of course your local grocery stores will have tons of sprinkles and Valentine’s Day candy to decorate the cookies.

You also have to have a craft or two, right??  I decided we’ll be making these cute conversation heart pencil toppers I found on Disney’s Family Fun website.  I thought they were fun and practical too!

Here are some other craft/activity ideas…

A Valentine’s Day candy necklace would be fun!  This idea is also from Disney’s Family Fun website.

These lollipop flowers from All You are simple and cute!

I thought these tissue paper flowers from Kaboose would be great for the kids to make and give to their mom’s.

Now for some games…

We are going to play a couple of games with conversation hearts.  For the first one, the kids will use chopsticks to see how many small hearts they can move from a large container to their plate/bowl in a certain amount of time (1-2 minutes).  Whoever has the most hearts at the end is the winner.

The second game is to see how many large conversation hearts the kids can stack on top of each other before the tower tips over!  The tower has to stand for 3 seconds and whoever has the most hearts in their tower wins.

Picture above and ideas are from One Charming Party.

Bingo is another favorite for younger children and here are a couple of free printable Bingo cards you can use.  Small conversation hearts, candy corns and M&M’s make great markers.

Sweet Shop Bingo from Birthday In a Box

Valentine’s Day Bingo from Simply Fresh Designs

I thought this Valentine food pair game by B. Nute productions would be fun too.

You’ve all probably heard of the game “Don’t Eat Pete”…I’ve never played it, but I hear it’s a HIT with the kids.  To play, you put a small snack or piece of candy (I’ll be using M&M’s) in each square.  One person leaves them room and everyone else decides which square is going to be “Pete”.  Then the child comes back and starts eating the candies one at a time.  When he eats the candy on the chosen square, everyone yells “Don’t Eat Pete!”

I found a couple of free, printable Don’t Eat Pete games for Valentine’s Day.  We’ll be playing this at our party…I just haven’t decided if I’m using one of these, or making my own with scrapbook paper…we’ll see how organized I am!!

LOVE this colored heart one from Smitten Blog Designs

Don’t Eat Val with cute doggies from Tip Junkie

I recently made my own version of Don’t Eat Pete for Valentine’s Day and you can download it HERE!

Do you guys have any fun games or crafts that would be great for school parties?  I’d love to hear about them!!

The post School Valentine’s Day Party Ideas appeared first on Paper Crush.

Okay, I have to admit, I usually buy a box of Valentines at Target for my 2 boys to take to school on Valentine’s Day.  Granted they usually have a treat of some sort attached, like Ring Pops or Fun Dip or M&M’s, but nonetheless, they are store bought.  Last year for my daughter that’s in preschool I made little bags of treats with a cute little tag attached.  So this year I was determined to find some cool homemade valentines for boys that they can help make and take to school.  I’ve collected a few DIY classroom Valentines ideas for both boys and girls…maybe you can make one of them with your kids this year!

Dinosaur valentine tags from Pizzazzerie

Superhero valentine from SugarTot Designs

Outerspace valentine from Blue Skies Ahead

iphone valentine from Living Locurto

You Rock valentine from The Fickle Pickle

Love bug valentines from Dandee Designs

Owl valentine from Smitten Blog Designs

On a Roll valentine from Family Fun

I’m a Sucker for you valentine from Shindig Parties To Go!

Stitched heart bookmark valentine from Thirty Handmade Days

Conversation heart valentine from A Field Journal

Candy bar wrapper from Anything But Perfect

Butterfly sucker valentine from Skip to my Lou

Blow me a Kiss valentine from bloom designs

Bright & fun Starburst valentines from Peonies & Poppyseeds

If you’re anything like me, you probably wait until the last minute to get those classroom valentines ready, so that’s why I’m posting these now, so that you can get an early start on them…no excuses!!

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I remember seeing these fun little metal mailboxes at Target last year.  People had decorated them so cute and I decided I wanted to do that this year and make one for each of my kids, so as soon as I saw them in the dollar bins at Target, I snatched up 3 of them.  Then I saw this darling idea at Wants and Wishes Design.  She did a 14 Days of Valentine’s Day series on her blog last year where she chose 2 people that she anonymously delivered a special Valentine’s Day treat to, starting on February 1st and ending on Valentine’s Day.  On the last day she revealed who their secret admirer was.  I LOVE this idea and decided I’ll do something similar for my kids and maybe a secret person or two, if I’m really organized, haha!

So I’m incorporating both the little mailboxes and the 14 Days of Valentine’s idea.  Each morning starting on February 1st I’ll put a little surprise in my kids’ decorated mailbox.  I’m going to use the fun tags that Debbie at Wants and Wishes created for each of the days and I’ll use some of her darling gift ideas along with some of my own, tailored more towards what my kids specifically love.

Graphic courtesy of Wants & Wishes Design

Here are 2 of my 3 mailboxes…number 3 is not done yet, but I wanted to get this blog post done so you could start planning now if you want to do this fun activity.  As I mentioned, I got my mailboxes in the dollar bins at Target.  I’m not sure how many Targets still have these because I think they’re a hot seller!  BUT, I have seen the paper mache ones at Hobby Lobby and you could totally use those as well!

I’m not a scrapbooker, but I LOVE scrapbook paper and embellishments.  So bought a Valentine’s Day scrapbook kit and used the paper, stickers and ribbon to dress up my mailboxes.  Obviously you don’t have to make your mailboxes as fancy as I did, you could simply get some fun alphabet and Valentine’s Day stickers to decorate them, or even let your kids decorate them with stickers or foamies!

Here are some of the gift ideas and printable tags that Debbie created for her 14 Days of Valentines.  She has a post for each of the 14 days, so I have links to each of the days below where she gives you exactly what to buy and where she purchased her supplies along with the link to download the printable tag – it’s wonderful!  Debbie also has a store on Etsy where she sells her graphic designs for parties, gifts, invitations, treat bag tags and more!  She has some really fun ideas…check it out!!

Day 1 – Hello Valentine

Day 2 – Love You More Than Cake

Day 3 – You Rock

Day 4 – More Love & Chocolate

Day 5 – Struck

Day 6 – Cozy Up With Some PINK Hot Chocolate

Day 7 – XOXO

Day 8 – Bursting With XOXO For You

Day 9 – My Heart Beats For You

Day 10 – Cupid’s Chokehold

Day 11 – Be Mine

Day 12 – Owl Love

Day 13 – Chalk It Up to Love

Day 14 – True Writers Block

I can’t wait to start this fun little activity…I just know my kids are going to love it!  And so would a secret person or two who maybe needs a little extra love in their life right now   Have Fun!!

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Well, Valentine’s Day is less than a month away and that means it’s time to start decorating!!  I hardly have ANY Valentine’s decorations so I’m trying to add to my collection this year and hopefully (if I can get them all done) I’ll be sharing some of my creations with you!  I really like the idea of using prints or subway art to dress up your home a little.  It’s quick and easy and there are TONS of cute freebies out there!  I’ve been collecting my favorites on Pinterest so I thought I’d share them with you today!

In case you aren’t exactly sure how to add these fun prints to your holiday decor, you can do it a couple of ways…Visit the link to the website of the designer, then you can 1. Download the file(s) to your computer (usually either a PDF for use with Adobe Acrobat or a JPEG which is just like a regular picture file).  Once it’s on your computer you can print it directly to your home printer using cardstock or photo paper.  2. You can download the JPEG file and then upload that file to Costco or another retail photo print store (like WalMart or Walgreens) and they will print it for you.  3. You can put the downloaded file onto a flash drive and take it to a print shop and they will print it for you on nice cardstock.  Once you have your print, simply put it in a cute picture frame and you’re ready to roll!

Because I LOVE subway art, I decided to try my hand at creating my own using two of my favorite things right now…chevron and gray (with pink of course!).  You can download it HERE.

Simple, but DARLING prints at Pizzazzerie

Fun chevron (love!) and saying from The Girls at eighteen25

Modern and simple design from Sprik Space

Loving this gray and pink one from The Bonjour Blog

Traditional subway art by designs by cp

Love heart print from The Fickle Pickle

I really like the non-traditional Valentine’s Day colors from Every Creative Endeavor.

FUN one from The 36th Avenue

If you decide to use any of these fun prints to spice up your Valentine’s Day decor, send it over, I’d love to see!

The post Freebie Friday – Free Valentine’s Day printable decor appeared first on Paper Crush.

Yes, I realize it’s waaaay past Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t have my blog up and running when I did this party, and since it was my first party, I HAD to put it on here.  That, and the fact that it was featured on Anders Ruff {pinch me!!}.

So as I mentioned, this was the first party I had done since my new little obsession with parties and party blogs.  I was very nervous but decided to send it to a couple of party blogs in hopes of them showing it and GUESS WHAT!!?? Anders Ruff asked if they could feature it on their blog!!  I was totally DYING!! Click here to see it on their site!

The Valentine’s Day Party idea all started with a post I read in December on The Tomkat Studio’s blog from February 2009.  Kim had a little Valentine Party where she invited kids and mom’s to come make Valentine’s Day cards and socialize.  Then I saw the I Heart Valentine’s Day photo shoot by Anders Ruff featured on Hostess with the Mostess and the party planning began!

I ordered the I Heart Valentine’s Day printables from Anders Ruff and created the invitations using the scrapbookpaper and cupcake toppers.  My little 3 year old was so excited for the party and she had to hand-deliver every invitation!

The party was held in my home with 3 areas: the dessert/candy bar, the work area and the favor table.

As you can see, the cake was the focal point of the dessert/candy bar, with the fun balloons as the backdrop.  Jill from Sprinklebelle Cakes designed this AMAZING cake.  I sent her the link to the I Heart Valentine’s Day photo shoot as my inspiration for the party and told her to create whatever she wanted – I knew it would be wonderful, and it was!

My amazing friend Laura made all the wonderful desserts! I told her I just needed 1 or 2 desserts for the moms to enjoy and this is what she came with – like 500 amazing desserts (and yes, they ALL tasted as good as they look!!).

This is where the girls colored, made their cards, played Bingo, and decorated their cookies.  The pomander balls (I think that’s what they’re called??!!) hanging from the chandelier are all made from dyed coffee filters.  This was quite the project and took a little bit longer than I anticipated, but they turned out great!

The girls put their decorated sugar cookies, cupcakes and candy in these cute favor boxes from Polka Dot Market to take home.

The party was a huge success – the little girls were so cute and fun and I had the best time planning it all!  I decided it’s going to have to be an annual tradition because I already have so many other ideas for next year!!

Credits:

Photography – Laura Sheneman

Graphic Printables – Anders Ruff Custom Designs

Cake – Sprinklebelle Cakes

Desserts – Laura Sheneman

Balloons & Favor Boxes – Polka Dot Market

The post {Featured on Anders Ruff} Valentine’s Day Party appeared first on Paper Crush.