I love Family Fun Magazine and have subscribed forever. Their website has tons and tons of ideas for Valentine’s Day. Here are some of my favorites.

This Candy Airplane is sooo cute. I am thinking about making them to hand out to my daughter’s class for Valentine’s Day. Check the site for directions. Materials needed include a rubber band, smarties, life savers, stick of cinnamon gum, and some heart stickers.

These also look really cute, fast, and easy. You just need a small bag of candy, toy shovel, twist tie, ribbon, and pain pen. Check out the directions at the Family Fun site.

Finally, I saw this method for making heart-shaped cupcakes without having to buy a special pan. You simply take a regular cupcake pan and add a marble or ball of aluminum foil outside the liner to make the heart’s notch.

When I was in elementary school (sooo long ago…), I always made my Valentine’s Day cards. It wasn’t that my school required it…I was just very into arts and crafts and really enjoyed hand making each of my Valentine’s for my friends. My mom and I would head out to the local craft supply store and come home with construction paper, doilies, stickers, and whatever else we could find. I would also page through magazines looking for words or pictures to add to my valentines. Now many companies have taken the legwork out of making your own valentines by combining a variety of materials into kits. Check these out:

Hearth Song’s Valentine Kit is 19.95. It comes with 30 sheets of construction paper, 36 doilies, tissue paper, stickers, glitter, glue, and a few other items. All of it comes in a storage box with patterns and tips.

Chinaberry has a kit for 15.95. It has enough materials to make 30 small valentines. It comes with a variety of papers, doilies, beads, ribbon, and vellum.

Oriental Trading also has a Super Mega Valentine Kit. It truly is huge and will probably be enough to make valentines for the next few years. It’s 24.95 and comes with 100 doilies, 500 foam heart shaped beads, various foam hearts, alphabet stickers, envelopes, and papier mache boxes.

Happy crafting everyone!

I just read a great article on the Family Fun site, titled 11 Great Ways to Start the Year. There were some really sweet ideas for how to celebrate the New Year with your family. Here were my favorites:

Journal the most memorable moments of the year. You can have each child take a turn writing their page in a journal, or hand out paper to be placed in a 3 ring binder or scrapbook. Kate’s Paperie has really gorgeous paper goods. These Japanese Handmade notebooks would make a lovely keepsake.

Another idea is to interview your children each year by asking them the same questions. Ideas include: I am lucky because, If I had three wishes, and I am a little afraid of… It will be interesting to watch how your children’s responses change over the years. The questions and answers could be written in a nice notebook like the one above, as well.

You could spend the day trying “new” things to help celebrate the New Year. Try new foods, go to a new store, read a new book, or try a new hairstyle.

For families with older children, try a game of charades. Generate a list of memorable moments from the past year and then take turns acting them out. This is sure to bring back some fond memories and generate a few laughs.

Here are some fun and festive ideas you can use to help ring in the new year with style. Plum Party has lots of great party goods for many events. Their New Year’s items don’t disappoint. This Happy New Year’s Kit is called tooters and tiaras and comes with 4 of each.

They also have a more complete set for 6. It’s $24.00 and comes with 3 cone hats, 3 tiaras, 6 noise makers, 6 tooters, 2 serpentines, and 2 carnival balls. Everything is done in classy silver and black and it all comes in a handy bag. If you’re looking for a more colorful set, they also have the same thing in brighter colors.

Obviously, the kids can’t stay up ’til midnight, so many families make their own countdown at 7:00 or 8:00. Here are a few more festive ways to allow your kids to celebrate the new year before heading off to bed. Plum party has these great crackers. The kids can pop them open as they clock strikes 7. Each one contains some type of small toy for kids ages 6 and up.

Finally, I found a couple of items on my old standby, Oriental Trading. How about these champagne bubbles or these kooky 2007 glasses? Each is less than $6 per dozen.

So, that’s it for now. I know we have readers from all over the country and a few of you from around the world. I’d love to hear about any special New Year’s plans you have for your family.