Happy Valentines' Day

We normally don't make much of a fuss of today's 'holiday'. It feels a bit like another excuse for retailers to convince you to buy more stuff you don't need, slotted neatly between 'back-to-school bargains' and  'Easter savings'. In past years, I have been known to bake heart-shaped biscuits and put them in the kids' school lunches, but that has been the extent of the celebration as I am cheap thrifty and refuse to be drawn into the hype.

This year, I thought that because there was so much cool free stuff around the 14th fell on a weekend, I would make a little effort to show my boys that I really do love them despite my frequent ranting and screaming occasional crankiness.

I found some terrific FREE printable goodie bags here. I didn't have any paper bags to print directly on to, so just used plain paper and then cut and glued onto some cellophane bags I had left over from Christmas baking.

 

Once I added a few heart-shaped chocolates and some heart-y ribbon, they were good to go to surprise the kids in the morning.

 I found a really great card for hubby from one of my favourite graphic designers, Cameron Blazer, for FREE on her blog here. She has a really dark interesting sense of humour! Right up my alley, and comes with a matching envelope. Did I mention it was FREE?

And then to have something to share in the afternoon, I made a batch of Raspberry Swirl cupcakes...

with pink cream cheese frosting, topped with some little picks I made by using the free printable chocolate wrappers from here and a bit of creative punching and cutting.

Yum! Hope your day has been full of cupcakes love too!

P.S. "Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved." -Victor Hugo