Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day, Palentine’s Day whatever you want to call it or celebrate it, it is a day to share the love with our nearest and dearest and even strangers. It has possibly never been more needed than this year. After nearly a year of lockdowns, tiers and being unable to spend as much time with our friends and family as we would have liked it’s more important than ever to show people how much they mean to us and they are not alone.
Share The Love
Throughout the pandemic, loneliness is an increasing concern for so many of us. More than ever, we’re looking for different ways to spread the love – whether that’s to our loved ones as mentioned or even a simple smile to a stranger, socially distanced of course. If you’re dressing up your doorway, writing cards or celebrating Valentines with a loved one, Design Bundles has tons of tools and inspirations to help action this. They have pledged to be a part of this cause and to help spread positivity through creativity and crafting.
The meaning behind Design Bundles’ share the love campaign is to try and help shine a light in dark times. Spreading positivity and joy is food for the soul, and can be so much fun to dive into. As well as being craft and creation addicts and advocates, they are helping to share resources and helplines to help battle loneliness for anyone in need.
Important Websites
- ageuk.org.uk – Helping older people combat loneliness, including weekly friendship calls.
- Samaritans.org – Offers both text and phone resources if you’re feeling low and need to speak to someone, whatever the reason.
- Letstalkloneliness.co.uk – An advice and support hub to feel less alone.
- Campaigntoendloneliness.org – Offers connections for the elderly.
Getting Crafty
It is often too easy to buy something from a shop and send it as a present, especially on Valentine’s Day. A box of chocolates or a bottle of wine is always nice to receive but this year, especially because we now have the kids and it has been a weird old year, when we received a big box of crafty stuff from Design Bundles, we decided to get our craft on and look at ways to share the love this Valentine’s Day.
I will be honest, I’m not that much of a crafter. I see people popping up on Facebook all the time making a living from selling the wonderful trinkets they create. Unfortuntely, the only thing I can make successfully is a mess. But as the kids love cutting, sticking, colouring and baking, this year we have opted for homemade thoughtful gifts that love, sweat and a few tears have gone into making.
What We Made
Valentine’s Cards
As Mr ESLT and I are key workers, Junior ESLT is still at school, whereas because of the lockdown a lot of her friends are being homeschooled. therefore we thought it would be a nice idea for her to make some Valentine’s Cards and deliver them by hand on the school run.
She wanted the kids at home to know that she is thinking of them and cannot wait for schools to reopen fully so she can see them again. A simple piece of folded card or even paper cutting templates are all you need to make the perfect cards. This pandemic has and continues to be hard on kids. Therefore, we hope that Junior’s card brought a smile to their faces.
Paper Flowers
It’s amazing what a bit of tissue paper and some pipe cleaners can create. Giving flowers on Valentine’s Day is a time honoured tradition and receiving them is always wonderful. However, after a few days they start to wilt and eventually die. Plus florists have a habit of hiking the price around Valentine’s Day.
Therefore, we made these easy paper flowers which will last forever and cost a lot less than a real bunch.
Here’s how we did it:
- Place six-eight sheets of tissue paper on top of one another, line them up, and cut them to your desired size. One side should be longer than the other (for larger flowers, use bigger sheets).
- Make a 1-inch fold to start off an accordion fold along one of the shorter sides.
- Then turn the tissue paper over and fold it back on itself for the next fold. Then turn it back for the fold after that.
- Keep folding and turning over the paper until all the tissue paper has been folded. You will be left with an accordion-style narrow strip of tissue paper.
- Use scissors and trim both ends of the issue paper strip so that it has a rounded edge.
- Fold the tissue strip in half
- Loop the pipecleaner around the middle of the folded tissue paper strip.
- Twist the pipe cleaner to ensure it stays in place around the tissue paper strip.
- Start pulling apart the fold to create the petals of your flower on one side.
- Repeat on the other side.
Decorations
Decorations are easy to make, especially for kids as they allow them to let their imagination run wild. From bunting to hanging decorations – card, tissue paper scissors and glue is all you need to create something magical. We made hanging hearts. I simply cut the heart shapes out for the kids and then they went to town decorating them with stickers and tissue paper. I then thread a piece of red string through the top. These could be given to people as a present or hung in the window to bring a smile to passers by.
Pictures
All kids love colouring don’t they (some big kids too). Therefore, we found some great colouring sheets on the Design Bundles website, especially for Valentine’s Day. Therefore I printed half a dozen out and let the kids get to work with ALL their pens and crayons. The end result – some lovely pictures to share with their friends and family. And the best part – the templates are free!
Cake
We love cake and we love baking. Therefore a Valentine’s cake was high on our things to make. We opted for a chocolate with salted caramel frosting traybake, decorating with freeze-dried strawberry pieces. It is super easy to make, the kids loved licking the bowl and it is a perfect sweet treat for a doorstop drop off.
Ingredients
Sponge
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 100g/3½oz butter
- 125ml/4fl oz milk
- 175g/6oz self-raising flour
- 275g/9¾oz caster sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 50g/1¾oz cocoa powder
- 6 tbsp boiling water
Frosting
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 125g caster sugar
- 160g salted butter
- 200g icing sugar
- 60ml water
- 80ml double cream
Decoration
- Freeze-dried strawberry pieces (we got ours from the baking aisle in Sainsburys)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 (160C fan).
- Put the cocoa powder in a large bowl, add the boiling water and mix together until smooth. Add the butter and beat into the cocoa/water mixture. Add the remaining cake ingredients and mix – either by hand or with an electric whisk.
- Pour the mixture into the lined tin and bake for 30-35 mins.
- Once cooked, remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool fully.
- Put the sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat. Stir for approximately 5 minutes to dissolve the sugar. Then increase the temperature and bring the mixture to the boil. Remove from the heat and pour in the cream. Add the salt and vanilla. Stir. Allow to cool completely.
- Cream the butter with the icing sugar in a large bowl. Add the caramel mixture and mix well.
- Spread across top of cooled tray bake cake.
- Sprinkle freeze dried strawberry pieces on top.
We hope we have inspired you to share the love this Valentine’s Day and please remember if you are feeling lonely, help is out there. Sending LOVE xxx
- AD – Sponsored Post
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