Are you completely sick of forking out a small fortune every Valentines Day buying over priced flowers, cards and chocolates? I know it drives me crazy how a day which has been designed for lovers has become so expensive and commercialised!
Do you want to give your lover something special and personal this year or something sweet and sexy? Yes we all want to pamper our lovers on Valentines Day.
"But it's all so expensive!" I hear you exclaim!
Never fear VickyVickster is here and she is the mistress of sexy romance on a budget! I am now going to give you some ideas for cost effective, personal gifts that I guarantee your lover will adore! Take your pick from the list below ranging from the sweet and sincere to the saucy and sexy or just be inspired to do or make something a bit different this year!
Personalised is best when it comes to Valentines gifts.
Send an Ecard!
Ecard's are a wonderful and many faceted thing. I love Ecards and send tonnes of them to my friends online all the time. Basically they are a greeting card that you send through your email. You find all kinds from the simplest plain pictures to all singing all dancing java cards and animation cards. Ecard sites are easy to find and many of them are free! To find a suitable site just type the words "Free Ecards" into a search engine and bobs your uncle! Add to this search the word "Valentine" and you will be led to many pages of sloppy, lovey, funny, sweet and sexy cards. All you have to do is choose the one you love the best and fill out your details and send it off to your lover's email. As Simple as that.
Many Ecard site's have an option to choose when the Ecard is sent so if you're searching around now and find the perfect card see if they have a feature to allow you to send it actually on 14th February itself. That way you can write out your card and send it there and then meaning there's no last minute panic to find, write and send an Ecard on Valentine's Day itself. Lets face it there's so many better things to be doing and your dearly beloved is not going to be impressed with you sitting on the net and swearing at the computer for hours on the sexiest day of the year!
And I guarantee you'll find the card your looking for on one of those three sites or your money back! (waits for people to realise they're free)
Record a Special CD or tape.
This is a classic! Everyone loves music and every couple has at least a handful of songs that remind them of each other. Copy these from your existing CD's or tapes onto a new one, maybe adding a little voice message if you can manage that and voila! A thoughtful and meaningful collection of music that cost you the price of a blank cassette or CD. Much better than some commercial collection that you have to shell out a small fortune for right?
To make this even more special decorate the cover. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, just a few different colours to write your lovers name and you've added that little extra touch that shows how much time and care you've put into pleasing them.
Please note! Make sure the songs you record will be enjoyed by your lover! If their taste is different to yours make sure you cater for that. Don't add something you know they will hate as this could possibly ruin the whole collection! If you really want to add a song that you're not 100% sure would normally be your lover's cup of tea well the put it right near the end so they can skip it easier, especially if you're recording a cassette tape.
Write a love letter.
For this you might need to purchase some nice looking writing paper or a blank card but if you shop around you can buy good looking paper/greeting cards very reasonably! My top tip is to check in markets as they often have the best prices and a large selection. Don't wander into a large chain store type shop unless you can afford to pay that bit more as you will just get frustrated when you look through all the lovely cards and you realise you can't afford them.
When choosing a pen to write your love letter with make sure it is full of ink and isn't going to run out on you at any moment! Writing in colour is always sweet but bear in mind that poison pen letters are often written in red and it can be seen as quite an angry and harsh colour. Make sure it is comfortable for you to write with and don't try using a cartridge pen if you're used to a ballpoint. It might sound romantic in theory but a letter covered in ink blots is not that sexy. Try scribbling on a spare piece of paper to check your pen is OK then you're ready to write!
When you sit down to write your letter be in a relaxed state of mind. It might help to have a photo of your lover or some other memento to look at for inspiration. Don't force it just write how you feel. It doesn't need to be Shakespearian in its grandness; the whole idea of a love letter is that it comes from the heart. If all you want to write is "I love you with all my heart" then that's all you need to write. If you are more inclined to go on for a few pages then do so. Write as much or as little as feels right.
Content wise try to keep to your own words. If you quote someone else, give them credit for it. It is not going to impress your dearly beloved if they find the heartfelt letter they received was actually composed by some dead guy to his wife several centuries before! Again I stress the most important point; a love letter is from the heart. Be sincere and true to your feelings and give your lover something they can keep to remind them of you.
Ladies, if you fancy adding a little squirt of perfume to your letter then feel free but please spray the letter from arms length as you do not want to knock your lover out with potent perfume fumes as he opens his letter!
Create a picture frame.
There are several ways you can interpret this. You can either make a collage of pictures and images to put in a shop bought frame for your lover, creating a personal love collage for them or you can take one picture you really like of you and your lover together and create a frame to put round it. Really I guess it's a case of what you can afford to do!
A frame is pretty simple to put together, 2 pieces of cardboard around an inch bigger than your picture, cover them both in wrapping paper, securing the paper with lots of glue.
Then cut out a hole in one piece of card just slightly smaller than your picture. Please make sure you can see the photo properly and that it is fairly well centred. I leave it to you as to how precise you want to be!
Stick your photo in place(the easiest way to do this is to stick your photo to the back piece, check it is in the right position several times before you secure it though!) then stick the frame together and there you have it! Simply attach a piece of sting or wire to the top of your picture in a hoop so it can be hung on the wall and it's done.
Some artistic inclination is needed for this option; if it sounds too complex to you then I suggest you opt for a less arty option to show your love this year!
Make a scrap book!
All you need is an exercise book OR several pieces of paper hole punched and strung together. Once you have your book decorate the front and back cover in anyway you like! Collage images form newspapers and magazines over it, use stickers or wrapping paper or just draw. This is your present to your lover; you decide what you want to do with it.
The contents can be whatever you want too. Photos, love letters, famous (and relevant) love quotes, pictures you've drawn, a page of graffiti all based around the "I luv u" variety you used to cover your books in at school, poetry... the list goes on.
I made one for my husband when we were first together. In mine I added a few pages of love quotes form various Terry Pratchett books because we are both big Discworld fans, I put in a few quotes from songs that reminded me off him and some pictures, a graffiti page and I wrote an introduction page. It took me a long time but I was well pleased with it when I finished and my husband still has it now.
Fill your book with what you know your lover will love and you just can't go wrong!
WARNING!