SHE SAID:

The first time Brad and I celebrated Valentine’s together he basically did all of the work. We made reservations at a nice restaurant, he arrived with a dozen red roses and later gave me an iPod. While it was all very nice and memorable, I think we’ve had just as good, if not better, Valentine’s Days and spent less.

To me, it’s all about the small things that make the day complete. One of the sweetest things Brad ever did on Valentine’s was make me a homemade card while he was recovering from laser eye surgery. It was crafted out of construction paper, had a cute little rhyming poem and he had made illustrations of his bloodshot eyes.

Giving your lady (or man) a good Valentine’s Day requires much thought, but it doesn’t mean spending lots of money necessarily. I’m a big lover of all things handmade since they require thought and are quite endearing. Whenever I’m looking for inspiration I visit Martha Stewart’s website, which usually never fails me. This year was no different. I found a cute little card that required 3-D glasses to read the secret message on the front. Perfect for my geeky little love bug. There are also tons of great homemade gift ideas on there, such as the love note wrapped chocolate bar and the candy and tulip bouquet.

We decided to make supper together this year, which can be quite a fun stay at home option. You can skip the overcrowded, overpriced restaurants and kick back at home, dressed however you like. We made a heart shaped pizza from scratch using the Crusty Pizza Dough recipe that came with my Kitchenaid mixer. We also made these delicious homemade Hershey Kisses we found over at Bakerella’s website. They look so impressive and cute, but are so easy and cheap to make. Our whole supper cost less than $20!

If I could do it again, I’d probably just make supper or dessert together, not both. By the end of the night we were both pretty exhausted from being in the kitchen. If you’re a super busy couple, making supper together will probably only frustrate you. Luckily, Boston Pizza has heart shaped pizzas during Valentine’s Day and Cold Stone Creamery has heart shaped ice cream cakes, among other love inspired treats.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a good time and make your special someone feel loved. It only cost Brad a sheet of construction paper one year.

HE SAID:

Our first Valentine’s Day together was just short of a disaster. The expensive restaurant gave us panic attacks, the gift I gave her was a dud in the long term (though she was excited when she opened it), and my wallet was screaming for mercy. Lesson learned. Since then we’ve decided to do one of two things.

1. Celebrate Valentine’s Day the weekend before or after February 14th. The flowers are WAY cheaper, the restaurants aren’t insanely full, and we both enjoy ourselves much more.
2. Throw the typical things you’re supposed to do out the window and just make Valentine’s Day whatever we want it to be.

This year we went with the second option. It was very low key and inexpensive, which was great. We had just come back from vacation so we weren’t looking to spend a lot more money. The idea was this: take all the things people usually do on the big day, and do it DIY style.

Dinner at a fancy restaurant = make dinner together

Giving a box of chocolates = make our own chocolates

Spend $50 to go to the theatre = watch a movie at home

You get the idea.

Making dinner together was interesting. We have an incredibly small kitchen, so it isn’t conducive to more than one person at a time. We made it work though, and our heart shaped pizza turned out great. We also included Himmery (our cat) in the festivities by giving him some wet food, which he loves. For dessert we made homemade (giant) Hershey Kisses. They were really easy, which is obvious since I helped make them, and they tasted great. My only complaint about making dinner together was that I felt like I was in the way more than I was helping. Susan can make an awesome homemade pizza in her sleep, so throwing me into the mix didn’t make her life any easier. We made it work though.

One thing we do a little differently on Valentine’s Day is we make sure it’s not just about one of us. Yes, I make an effort to make Susan feel extra special on that day, but she doesn’t leave me out in the cold. She usually buys me a little gift, and we both have a hand in choosing what we do each year. I think it really helps keep it fun for both of us.

In the end it doesn’t matter what you do for Valentine’s Day, as long as you and the person you’re with have fun. If going all out and spending a ton of money is your thing, go for it. If not, there is no shame in enjoying an inexpensive evening at home.

Finally, if you haven’t entered our Valentine’s Day Giveaway, check it out and enter before the deadline.

SHE SAID:

For our first anniversary, we tried to give each other gifts in keeping with the traditional gift giving guide. Since your first year anniversary gift is supposed to be related to paper somehow, Brad made me a photo book from Apple of our first year together. It had pictures of our wedding, of course, but also different places we went and all of our “firsts” like Christmas, Valentine’s, etc.

Since everything is digital now, we’re less apt to take pictures off of the computer, get them printed and then put them in a photo album (seriously, when did people have time for that?). The great thing about photo books is their simplicity. All you basically have to do is upload your photos and wait for it to arrive in the mail.

As you know, we just came home from our winter escape from Florida. Coming home from trips can sometimes be a downer, especially when you go from bikini weather to parka weather. A fun way to relive all of the fun memories while you were away is to spend an evening together documenting it all. We put on a pot of tea we purchased from Disney World and created a timeline of our trip together. It was a nice way to transition from vacation euphoria to reality.

Photo books are a great gift to give and receive. You can have a lot of fun creating story lines to go along with your pictures and they look a whole lot better on a coffee table or shelf than those massive binders with plastic inserts.

HE SAID:

One of my favourite things to do when I visit my grandparents is to look through old photo albums. I like the ones that have pictures of things I remember as a kid, but I especially enjoy the really old black and white ones that give me a glimpse of my family’s history. After I’ve gone through a heavy pile of photo albums, I realize that it is far from a perfect system for storing pictures. The plastic pages stick together, the pictures are sometimes falling out of the slots, and all of the newspaper clippings and other random things being kept in the book make it quite difficult to browse the photos.

The best solution to the problem that I’ve found (unless you want to spend a small fortune on an iPad to look through your photos) is photo books where the pictures are actually printed on to the pages in the book. I used Apple’s service when I created one for Susan, but there are plenty of options out there. For Mac users, it’s as simple as opening iPhoto, selecting the photos you want included in your book, click on the book button in the menu at the bottom of iPhoto, then you just pick a template and fill it with photos. It’s very easy.

The prices for the books range from $5.00 to $50.00 depending on if you choose hard or soft cover, and the size of the book. The one I made Susan for our first anniversary was a large hard cover book, so it only cost about $30.00. The quality ended up being great. The hard cover was nice, and the photos (which were taken with our aging point and shoot camera) looked quite nice printed on the glossy paper.

Even if you don’t have a paper anniversary coming up, a photo book would make a great Valentine’s Day gift. It takes thought and effort to pick out all the photos and arrange them nicely. It’s a great way to share or relive fun memories.

For those of you who won’t be using iPhoto to make your photo book, don’t despair. There are plenty of options online to choose from. Check out these links and see which one works best for you. Black’s, Better Homes and Gardens, Costco, Carsand Mosher