Galentine's Day.

We figured that our first time celebrating Leslie Knope's favorite holiday would be the perfect opportunity to bring ladies in our Beijing community together for a night of wine, cheese, and girl talk. I'm fortunate to have another friend in our community also have a love for entertaining, and she comes fully equipped with gorgeous cheese boards that we borrowed and set out.

I thought this occasion was the perfect time to pull out our milk glass bottles from Kowloon Dairy Co that we purchased in Hong Kong. We used these free printables thanks to Pizzazzerie. We even answered the fun question cards they had written. 

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.

Valentine's Day Cupcakes.

We made some holiday cupcakes for my kids to share at school for Valentine's Day. One day while we were out grocery shopping, we found these cute cupcake holders and toppers tucked in the back of a shelf with paper plates. We knew they would be perfect for celebrating the holiday.

We used a white cake mix and white buttercream icing for our cupcakes. Initially I thought I'd leave the frosting plain because I really liked the simplicity of the buttercream frosting, but my five year old daughter voted to add some sprinkles. Sprinkles always win.

Confetti Hearts.

We still love confetti here at Julie Ann Events. This is a fun idea for Valentine's Day without the traditional holiday colors of red and pink. Marshmallow hearts covered with confetti are a fun treat to give classmates at school. You can also dip the marshmallow hearts in white chocolate before adding confetti sprinkles to them and put them on a stick. Anything tastes better on a stick! Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day? What's That?

Valentine's Day in Hong Kong is overshadowed by Chinese New Year. This holiday is not pushed as much as it is back in the United States. We aren't even making cards to hand out to the other kids in my two children's classrooms at school this year. There are no heart shaped boxes of candy lining grocery store aisles, I have yet to discover any candy conversation hearts, and fortunately no cheesy teddy bears holding silk roses {I apologize if that is what you love getting for Valentine's Day}.

However, I still like to celebrate a holiday revolving around love. So as a special treat for our family, we made some mini pies in the shape of a heart.

The recipe is simple. A two ingredient treat of pie dough and raspberry jam.

Heart Shaped Pinata.

Happy Valentine's Day to you!!! We love our kid's teachers and feel so blessed to have them impacting their lives on a daily basis at school. As a way to say thank you to them this Valentine's Day, we gave them heart shaped pinata's filled with candy.

By recycling old cereal boxes, we cut the cardboard into the shape of a heart. Then using tissue paper we used our fringe scissors to cut three different patterns of paper. We filled the heart with kisses and my children wrote a special note that we placed inside as well.

Valentine's Day Packages.

Do you give gifts for Valentine's Day? It's easy to grab a box of prepackaged chocolates off of the shelf at the grocery store in the holiday aisle. But sometimes it's nicer to give a gift that lasts a little longer than the five seconds it takes to down a piece of chocolate. Our family has never been too traditional when it comes to holiday gift giving, and our displays of affection are never super extravagant. A nice way to dress up a package is to layer the wrapping. Using the same construction paper we've used for our whole Valentine's Day series, we wrapped up a package. We layered the package by wrapping white string around it several times. We added a paper heart and attached it to the white string with a small wooden clothespin.

My Husband's Favorite.

Since he is my Valentine after all, today I thought I'd feature my husband's favorite cake. Every birthday he asks me to make him a yellow cake {the box mix kind} with chocolate frosting {the kind that comes already made out of one of those plastic containers}. So much for made from scratch. He is the love of my life, after all, so I made him a special treat for Valentine's Day. Using a file from our Silhouette Cameo, we cut out the holiday conversation bubble for the background.

Chair Of Hearts.

If you're hosting a Valentine's Day party, what better way to dress up your chairs than by simply draping them with a garland of paper hearts. Using hearts that we cut out of two different types of card stock, we sewed them together and attached them to the back of a chair. A quick and easy Valentine's Day project. My two kids even enjoyed helping with this project.

Heart Toast.

We love breakfast at our house. We especially love breakfast in bed. This year February 14th falls on a Friday. Week day mornings are always hectic for us. Between getting my husband off to work, lunches packed, the kids dressed, and me not being being a morning person, this is a quick and festive breakfast. Toast cut into the shape of a heart with some red raspberry jelly on it. A fun start to the Valentine's Day morning.

Lunch For My Valentine.

My husband typically packs a lunch for work every single day. For a sweet Valentine's Day twist I packaged his brown bag lunch with a little holiday decoration. Yup, another arrow. This time tied onto the bag with some more twine. I am so thankful for the husband I have. For the love we share. And I am so thankful for the marriage we are living together. We used this passage of scripture from Ephesians 3:16-19 for our wedding, and I want to share it with you today...

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

{Original inspiration for this project can be found here.} 

Chocolate Cake For Valentine's Day.

There is just something about the words "chocolate" and "Valentine's Day" that always go together. We baked up a dark chocolate fudge cake for the holiday. We then iced it between layers of classic vanilla frosting. Such a perfect way to celebrate Valentine's Day by eating this moist cake with the ones you love. For our holiday topper, we simply added some paper hearts.

Bouquet Of Hearts.

Instead of flowers, what about giving that someone special in your life a bouquet of hearts? Alright, it might not have quite the same effect. However, for kids this would make a really fun gift. We used wooden dowels and attached them to different sized hearts that we cut out of card stock. We also used these hearts as part of the Valentine's our kids gave out to their fellow classmates at school.

Cup Of Coffee.

Wouldn't it be fun to wake up on February 14th to a cup of coffee with a heart in it?!?!! Such a simple way to say I love you to your significant other. We purchased some heart shaped marshmallows from the grocery store and added them to our morning coffee. Top it off with some whipped cream! For those who don't drink coffee, a cup of hot chocolate with a heart in it would be equally as meaningful and send the same message. {Cute mug from Anthropologie}.

Valentine's Day Crown.

I have a little girl in my life who loves all things princess. And all things glittery, sparkly, or shiny. She saw me working on creating this Valentine's Day series for the blog, and asked me to make something specifically for her. I happily conceded. Using the same pipe cleaners that we used for our cookie heart topper, we made this crown. How fun would it be to wear this little crown to school on Valentine's Day?  You too can make one for the special someone in your life by using pipe cleaners. That's it. Simple. Easy. There's a certain simplicity that I particularly like about this crown, however you can always dress it up by adding a pom-pom to the three crown peaks.

{Original inspiration - which is so cute - for this project can be found here.}  

Heart Arrow Cupcakes.

Yesterday we featured arrows and we thought we'd continue the theme for today. Here's a really fast and simple way to add some extra detail to a plain cupcake. Red velvet cupcakes scream Valentine's Day. I picked up half a dozen red velvet cupcakes from our grocery store bakery section. Prepackaged items automatically cuts your work in half! By adding two different sized heart shapes {that we cut out of card stock} to some cookie sticks, you've got instant arrows shot by Cupid himself! Ok, maybe not.

{Original inspiration for this project can be found here.}  

Arrows.

There is this boy in my life who calls me Mama. He currently loves anything superhero. Spiderman. Batman. Yoda. Robin Hood. Zorro. And with this love of superhero's comes a lot of sword playing, using a sling shot, and asking his Mama make him a bow and arrow. As one of the little loves in my life, I wanted to make him a Valentine that spoke right to his heart. We gathered some random twigs out of our yard and used our coordinating colored card stock. Using a feather pattern from our Silhouette Cameo, we tied that on with some twine.

{Original inspiration for this project can be found here.}  

  

Eggy In A Basket.

Growing up my mom would make these for me and my siblings. I always loved the whole concept of the bread being a little basket for the egg. Now I make this for my kids on a regular basis. Such a simple breakfast dish consisting of bread with an egg in the center of it. For a Valentine's Day spin on this classic dish, use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out the space for the egg.

{Original inspiration for this project can be found here.} 

Kite Valentine.

You blow me away... You keep me a float... Whisk me away, Valentine... You send me soaring... Are you tired of the hearts for Valentine's Day? You will be seeing a majority of heart ideas on this blog in the coming days, but for now here's something a little different for Valentine's Day. Everyone loves flying a kite. Although this post is an alternative to the blatant holiday symbol, we did sneak a bit of love into this project by making heart shaped bows on the kite. Make this simple kite for the Valentine in your life by using card stock, a couple wooden round dowels, and twine.

Pipe Cleaner Heart Topper.

Are you thinking Valentine's Day yet? We thought it would be fun to feature fourteen Valentine's Day related posts on the blog. We got some great ideas off of Pinterest and tried to put our own spin on some really cute projects. So for our first feature, we are going with our family's go to chocolate chip cookie recipe. These cookies are so delicious that my husband will eat the whole batch over the span of just two days. We topped off these favorite cookies with a simple pipe cleaner heart topper. You could even include a little note with the sentiment, "You're the milk to my cookie".  

{Original inspiration for this project can be found here.}

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2 1/2  C     All purpose flour
1  tsp         Baking soda
1  tsp         Salt
2 sticks      Room temperature unsalted butter
1/2  C       White sugar
3/4  C        Packed brown sugar
1  tsp         Pure vanilla extract
2               Room temperature eggs
2  pkg       Dark chocolate chips

Sift dry ingredients together and set aside. In a separate bowl, cream together the sugars and butter until fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Gradually add dry ingredients until dough is formed. Add chocolate chips to the dough. Using an ice cream or cookie scooper drop balls of cookie dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheets. Bake for 12 minutes or until cookies are light brown.