Valentine's Day Party.

Here in Hong Kong, Valentine's Day is overshadowed by Chinese New Year and doesn't get much recognition. Valentine's Day typically falls on the same week as Chinese New Year. Most people leave the country for the holiday and shops close down for the week. However, I thought it would be fun to put together a small Valentine's Day themed party for some of the kids who stayed in town. Thankfully, the weather was perfect and we were able to set up the party on our back patio.

To cut back on the food prep, we asked each family to bring a snack to contribute to the playdate. Our friends brought fresh fruit and the cutest strawberry-banana fruit leather that they had made themselves and rolled up into Valentine's Day treats.

I had been struggling with sickness leading up to the day of the party, so I went with purchased foods from our local bakeries. Sugar donuts got a festive holiday bunting topper, while the traditional Hong Kong egg tart was placed in Valentine's Day cupcake wrappers and topped with a coordinating heart topper.

We decided to give the kids a sugar rush with their drinks. By dipping the cups in vanilla frosting and then covering them with sprinkles, it gives the rims a festive touch. We filled each cup with strawberry cotton candy and then filled the cups with Sprite. The cups are typically filled with champagne poured over the cotton candy, but since this was a kid party, we kept it alcohol free.

We had a few crafts lined up for the kids to make during the party. The first activity was a painting project using the erasers on the ends of a pencil and watercolor paints. We had the kids cut out a heart shape, lay the cutout on a new sheet of paper, and then paint dots on the edges of the cutout. Once the kids had gone around the heart shape cutout, we removed the cutout and a pretty heart silhouette was left on the painted sheet of paper.

We had purchased some wooden woven hearts that the kids were able to use their imaginations to craft with, as well as some other paper hearts that they could attach to anything of their choosing. For the girls of the party, we purchased some pink tassels to sting onto a chain to make a necklace for them to wear.