valentine's advent

Hiya friends! It's no secret that I have a major crush on anything Valentine's related. Our family has always made this day pretty special. But not in the "roses and fancy dinner everning out" kind of way, but rather the PINK pancakes, heart shaped sandwiches and happy little surprises kind of way. With that said, I was never happy with Valentine's day being only one single day. That is just no fun at all! Instead, we celebrate from Feb. 1st- Feb. 14th, with a Valentine's day advent.

I am too antsy to have the same Valentine's advent year after year so I typicaly come up with something simple, but equally cute. This year I was inspired by the folded paper heart notes my husband and I use to pass in the hallways of our highschool at the ripe old age of 16. In fact, I still have those notes in a shoebox and read them from time to time.

Since I am a 8x8 white space scrapper I always have very large scraps of paper left from my projects. I used these to create these fun hearts (that can be used to hold notes & treats) and then simply added a digital tag that I printed and punched out with my circle punch.

With Jonathan home, and the girls being older I decided we were all going to be involved this year in our advent. For each day from Feb 1st- Feb 14th there is an designated person who writes a note (or gift) and a person who gets a note (or gift). By the time each memeber of the family writes a note for the other three members, and vice versa we are already 12 days in. We take one day off advent (that heart is filled simply with candy) and one day that is addressed to the family and is filled with something we will all enjoy.

(supplies - Snippets Anywho; Snippets- Hmmm; Snippets Howdy; Sundrifter- Sunny Day ; Sundrifter- Pocahontas; Here & THere San Francisco; Here & There Santa Fe; Here & There Charlotte; Here & There Boston; Foam Circles; Front Row Digital Stamps)

Since I only needed to come up with three surprises this year I decided to make them extra special! For my oldest daughter I am going to sneak here out to her favorite breakfast place before school. For my youngest, we have a painted piggie date. For the love of my life, I made reservatios for a spa (shhh don't tell him!). Now these are just three of the dates that will be included. I know the girls will simply right love notes to each other, and those are just as cherished as anything in this advent. So please don't think the advent needs to cost an arm and a leg, it can be as simple as a love note to a fun date, just enjoy it!