42 Ways to Say I Love You on Valentine’s Day

Can you believe I came up with 42 Ways to Say I Love You on Valentine’s Day?  Neither can I!  Some are obvious, some are “takes” on the obvious and some are (at least I hope so) new ideas.

And, I know you’re asking “what’s up with the 42 Ways thing?  Why not 10 ways, or 20, or 50 or 100?”  Well, per my earlier posts, 42 San Diego Restaurants to Savor , 42 Things to do in San Diego and 42 San Diego Museums, 28 Days and Half Off, the number 42 is an attempt to “brand” Toot Sweet 4 Two (hereafter known as TS4T) – the “4 Two” in TS4T reads forty-two; get it?  I know it may seem a little silly to some of you, but TS4T is a business and Tiffany and I are exploring ways to create brand identity and stickiness out there in the World Wide Web! {I’m smiling; hope you are too!}.

So, if you are looking for an idea or two (or 42) to express to your special someone how you feel, check these out:

1. Here’s the first obvious one:  pop the question.  Valentine’s Day is a great day to become engaged!
2. Here’s another obvious one:  buy your loved one jewelry.  During Valentine’s Day, stores are stocked with beautiful jewelry ideas.
3. As long as we are talking about jewelry, get your loved one a custom designed photo charm from Jewel Kade.  Tiffany’s sells Jewel Kade as one of her many “hats” (see The Baker’s Hat and Other Musings).  She gave her mother and grandmother a custom designed photo charm of my mother and father in their early years for Christmas and my mother (her grandmother) wears hers constantly.  It has taken on even more meaningful significance to my mother (actually to all of us) since the death of my father.  They are beautiful and unusual.  Tiffany combined the custom designed photo charm with an “Established Custom Canvas” and poetry charm, also from Jewel Kade, for a one-of-a-kind gift that is cherished.  Plus my mother received the “Established” family canvas, too, as part of this unique package.
4. And, here’s another classically obvious idea:  give a bouquet of a dozen red roses.
5. Can’t afford a dozen red roses (because the mark-up at Valentine’s Day is horrific!)?  Give a single red rose tied with a pretty ribbon or adorned with baby’s breath.
6. Give a miniature rose-bush in a beautiful container.
7. Give a tree rose in a planter.  Here’s a link to Jackson & Perkins’ website to make your gift-giving easier.  No, we don’t earn any money by referring you to their website (in fact, we currently don’t make any money, at all, on our website!).  I just thought I’d share a trusted, well-known flower vendor with all of you.  I have bought Jackson & Perkins roses for many, many years both in retail stores, from their catalog and through their website and have always been happy with my results.  Now if I could just solve my gopher problem, I would be one happy girl!
8. Roses not your thing?  Give a bouquet of all red flowers.
9. Flowers not doing it for you?  Give a beautiful plant.
10. Not a grand enough gesture?  Give a tree!  I’ve been the recipient of many trees over the last 20 years and they always make me happy plus I have the added bonus of walking out into my yard and remembering who gave me that beautiful tree!
11. Are you single and without a significant other at the moment?  Don’t just let this Valentine’s Day slip by you!  Buy a dozen roses and hand them out to strangers!  Yes, I said hand them out to strangers – take them to your local hospital or eldercare facility and ask to hand them out.  You will brighten 12 other people’s day and yours.
12. Flowers still not your thing?  Give a balloon bouquet.
13. Or a cookie bouquet.
14. Or a giant cookie pizza.
15. Or a real pizza with “I Love You” spelled out in pepperoni!  Sssshhh…I think I’ll do this one for Charlie {grin}.  He loves Pepperoni Pizza and rarely gets to have it because (1) we don’t get out much; (2) pizza restaurants don’t deliver to us because we live too far out in the country; (3) I haven’t yet mastered the art of making a decent pizza from scratch.
16. Another obvious choice:  give a box of chocolate candy in a Valentine heart-shaped box.
17. Give heart-shaped cookies on a pretty platter or in a pretty cookie tin.
18. Make chocolate heart-shaped candies.  Buy heart-shaped candy molds at your favorite craft supply store and have some crazy, chocolate-covered fun!
19. Make Chocolate-covered strawberries.  Although strawberries aren’t really in season right now, I got several pounds at my local grocery store the other day for $1.88 each!  What a great deal for out-of-season strawberries!  I feel like I won the strawberry lottery!  Now we can have Summer Berry Chicken Salad (see recipe) in the middle of winter!  Or even Fresh Strawberry Pie (see recipe).  Plus, they’re gigantic!  And, they’re delicious!  Look for my posts on Thursday to learn how to make Chocolate-covered Strawberries and Strawberry Cake.  Easy peasy!
20. Give a jar full of candy hearts.  Make sure the jar is clear, so that the recipient can see all the colorful candies and the messages on them.
21. Charlie loves Peeps; you know, those little yellow marshmallow birds at Easter that are now also bunnies.  I wonder if they have heart-shaped Peeps!  If not, they should or the Peeps manufacturing people are missing an opportunity!  If they have them, then Charlie is getting Peeps, too.
22. How about a teddy bear holding a heart?  I got my engagement ring from Charlie that way 24 years ago.  A wonderful surprise and a very romantic gesture.
23. Okay, here’s a very obvious one – give your special someone a Valentine’s card.  Choose it carefully and make it special.
24. Want to do something more creative?  Make your own.  There are many beautiful ideas out there.  See Tiffany’s posts, DIY Valentine Heart Plaque and FREE Printables and DIY Valentine Bookmarks, for her clever ideas.
25. Make a photo collage on PicMonkey.  PicMonkey is free (although you can upgrade for a monthly fee) and fun!  Make the PicMonkey collage first and save it to your computer.  Then go into the “Edit Photo” feature of PicMonkey and upload your collage as a photo.  Then you can add extra photo-editing techniques and add words to your collage.  All of the pictures on this post were created using PicMonkey.  Don’t want to print it out?  Email it to your special someone.
26. Have children?  Send them to school with heart-shaped sandwiches, heart-shaped cookies and heart-shaped strawberries.  Just slice the strawberries and notch out the heart shape at the top.
27. Sending Valentine’s to your child’s school for their classmates and teachers?  Don’t forget to send one to the school principal!  My sister’s an elementary school principal and I bet she’d love to get Valentine’s cards from her little students!
28. Is your loved one a movie buff?  Take them to a romantic movie.
29. Better yet, take them out of a romantic candlelight dinner (be sure to make reservations) and then to a romantic movie.
30. Better yet, buy them a romantic movie to watch together.
31. Better yet, make them a romantic candlelight dinner and watch the romantic movie together (restaurants are too crowded anyway on Valentine’s Day).
32. Better yet, make the dinner (and eat the dinner while listening to romantic music), then watch the romantic movie in bed!
33. Does your loved one like to read?  Buy them a romantic book.  Or, buy them an entire series of romantic books.  Or a Kindle preloaded with romantic books.
34. Is your loved one a music lover?  Buy them a romantic CD or download a playlist of romantic songs on their iPod or phone when they aren’t looking and then tell them in a voice-mail message.
35. Pamper your significant other with a gift certificate to a day at your local day spa.  Who doesn’t like to be pampered?
36. Money tight?  Give your significant other a home-made gift certificate for something you can do for them – like coupons for babysitting, doing laundry (including folding and putting it all away), packing lunches, etc.
37. Another no cost idea – find a romantic poem on-line (Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s Sonnet 43, “How Do I Love Thee” from “Sonnets from the Portuguese” is a favorite), create a Valentine card on your computer and email it to your loved one.  Total cost:  $0; just your time.
38. Another idea if you are single – throw a party and invite all your friends.  Ask your friends to bring friends.  Who knows; maybe you’ll meet someone special.
39. Frame a special photo of the two of you in a beautiful frame.
40. Create a gift basket.  Go all out and include flowers, candy, candles, gift certificates, jewelry.  Just be careful – how will you top that next year?
41. Plan an extravagant day by doing something special – go to Disneyland, cruise the harbor at sunset on a boat (maybe dinner’s included?), enjoy a hot-air balloon ride over the city, or go sky-diving (see my post, 42 Things to do in San Diego for pictures of my friends, Ali and Bert, doing that; it was a Christmas gift from one of them to the other!).
42. Buy your significant other a car!  Yep; I got a car for Valentine’s Day one year!  It was a Ford Mustang, a car that I’d wanted since I was in high school.  Charlie listens and remembers and is a complete romantic and loves Valentine’s Day.  And, yes, it was complete surprise!

So, there you have it – 42 Ways to Say I Love You on Valentine’s Day.

A single rose – one of the 42 Ways to Say I Love You on Valentine’s Day!

So here’s another idea:  your significant other doesn’t read our blog?  Email them a link to this post and tell them “here are some ideas for you.”  Sometimes they need a little nudge or reminder!  Or, just in case they won’t read the email (because all of our in-boxes are cluttered these days, aren’t they?), print this post and hand it to them, or put it in their briefcase or on their car seat or in a sealed envelope that says “Read When You Are Alone” (gotta keep the mystery going, right?), etc.  You get the idea…

Besides Pepperoni Pizza with “I Love You” spelled out in pepperoni and heart-shaped Peeps, what do I plan to give Charlie?  Just my love; see my post, A Thousand Little Ways.  I can’t compete with a car or coffee every morning or saving me from our screaming cat (our alarm clock)!

What did I leave off of this list?  Share your ideas with us!  We’d love to hear them!

Tootles,

Related Posts:

(other Valentine’s Day posts)

• 42 Shades of Red
• All You Need is Love
• Chocolate-covered Strawberries
• DIY Valentine Bookmarks
• DIY Valentine Heart Plaque and FREE Printables
• Easy Valentine Candy and Cookie Buffet
• Fresh Strawberry Pie
• Love is Our True Destiny
• Strawberry Cake
• Sweetheart Cream Cheese Spread
• Sweetheart Maple and Sage Sausage Patties
• Sweetheart Pie Crust Cookies
• Sweetheart Watermelon and Arugula Salad