Nothing takes me back to childhood faster then Valentine's Day. Remember back in the day. . . making mailboxes for the class party. . . picking out valentines and getting tired of filling them out after the first 3 friends. . . learning to make hearts by folding a paper in half and cutting around the shape of your thumb. . .conversation hearts. . . sugar cookies. . . and the taste of envelope paste. . . happy days :-)

Last year I created mailboxes for our family to leave notes and gifts to each other. Emily had a radar. If the flag went up she knew it within seconds! I am excited to put them out again this year.

ilove . . .We got creative with our valentines. These were made out of a box of conversation hearts and kisses. Family Fun Magazine always has great ideas.

Two years ago I was in charge of helping our Girl Scout troop make center peices for a spaghetti dinner and came up with these. . .

We made tissue paper pompoms, hot glued them to dowls and then stuck them into a chunk of floral foam in the pots. We covered the base with tissue paper and then filled them in with conversation hearts. Decorative and tasty.

A couple of months later I recreated these in 4 or 5 shades of blue and a couple of shades of pink. I tied polka dot pear-green ribbon on the dowls for leaves. Then they were filled with Cadbury mini eggs or jelly beans - even tastier. I used them for Emily's birthday party, baptism brunch, Easter, the PTA teacher appreciation lunch and then gifted a couple to the secretaries for Secretaries Day to go with an office full of other flower projects that all of the classes created for them. One of the teachers then bought the rest of them from me to give as Mother's Day gifts. They definitely were worth the small amount of time and money I spent - only about $2 or $3 to make. (I used more tissue paper sheets for the second batch and they were even cuter.) I think I need to make some more:-) LOVE THEM!!!

When I was downloading the last pictures I ran into a couple other fun projects I have done for Valentine's - ice cream soda center peice and chunky pearl bubblegum necklaces.

These were also made by the Girl Scouts. I think they did a great job for being 7 and 8.

P.S. If an edible craft ever calls for styrofoam shapes, rice krispie treats are less expensive and easier to work with!!!