Healthy Valentine's Day Cards & Gifts

Whether you’re making valentines for your child’s school party or going the traditional romance route with flowers and chocolate, don’t let Valentine’s Day make you abandon your principles of living wisely and well. Here are a few tips for a fun and romantic holiday that keep your health and the health of the planet in mind.

handmade valentine
Photo by Kristina Werner/Courtesy Flickr

Handmade, Recycled Valentines
Every year around Christmas, we at Natural Home & Garden offer tons of tips for wrapping gifts in recycled materials you have around the house (check out some of my favorite ideas). Use those same principles to create adorable valentines made from items otherwise bound for the landfill. Brown paper sacks can become a beautiful canvas when embellished with fun cutouts, scraps of ribbon or fabric, multicolored buttons or costume jewelry. Consider finding pretty colors or images to cut out from old magazines.

Instead of spending money on disposable valentines, spend that money at the craft store on design tools you can use again and again, such as heart-shaped paper punches, pretty stamps and a red ink pad (a couple examples are here and here), calligraphy pens or specialty paints. Not only are you helping teach your kids a lesson about reducing waste, you’re also enhancing their capacity for creativity.