Valentine's Day is one of the easiest times to plan a party for children. You've already got a built in theme, decorations a pretty straight forward, and everyone has a "lovely" attitude! Whether your party is a classroom Valentine's Day party, a home party, or a birthday party on Valentine's Day, it's sure to be fun for children and grown ups alike.

Let's take a look at some of the quick and easy ways you can design your own Valentine's Day party at home...

Setting The Stage For A Valentine's Day Party

Setting the stage for a Valentine party is super simple and fun -- in fact, it only has to be as elaborate and and complicated as you want it to be.

For a simple party, cut out a bunch of paper hearts in pink, red, purple, and white and tape them up all over your party room. After that, put up some white and pink streamers, blow up some red, white, and pink balloons and put them up all over the room, and put up a few arrows and cupids, and you'll have a simple, inexpensive party location.

Don't forget that the hosts should wear the appropriate party colors!

If you'd like to set up a little more elaborately decorated party, here are some great ideas and products you might want to try...

You may want to start out with a great Valentine's Day banner. They come in all different sizes and it's one sure way to get everyone in the mood! Some banners can be used outside or inside and make a grand statement at the entry to your party. You may also want to consider other outside Valentine decorations for your party if your budget permits.

When it comes to decorating the inside part of your party, you may want to mix some of your handmade decorations with pre-packaged Valentine decorations to save yourself a bunch of time. A large package of over 40 decorations(foil hearts, tissue balls, cupids, cutouts, and more) only costs about forty dollars and you can re-use them for years to come! A few selected decorations purchased from a party store can also make your party feel like more of "an affair" to your guests.

It's very likely that any Valentine's Day party you decide to throw will take place indoors, therefore, you may want to consider adding some special lighting. You can use plain white Christmas lights around the perimeter of your room, or get a little fancy with heart shaped lights.

Once your room decorations are complete, you'll want to start working on decideing what kind's of activities and games you want to have at your Valentine's Day party...

Valentine Activities

No matter what type of party you're planning for kids, a craft project related to the theme always works well. There's two ways you can go when it comes to party crafts:

• You can create your own project, purchase supplies, and prepare them for your guests.
• You can purchase a craft kit.

If you decide that purchasing a children's craft kit isn't for you, then here are some free option for finding children's crafts for Valentine's Day:

• Kid Crafts Magazine - This free digitally delivered magazine is full of tons of craft ideas all year round.



• Free Kid Crafts.com - Free Kid Crafts is exactly what is sounds like -- free crafts. Many of the crafts are aimed at younger children, but you can find a lot of ideas to adapt to your own party.

Of course, there's much more to a Valentine Party than crafts, so let's talk about the other Valentine activities you can plan for your party...

Party Games

Guess How Many - This is an old standby game for many different kinds of parties. Fill a jar with heart candies and have guests guess how many are in the jar. (Don't forget to count as you put them in the jar!) Place the jar near the door and hand each guest a 3x5 card to put their name, their guess and their favorite Valentine candy. Halfway through the party read them all off and announce the winner.

Pass the Heart - Using small plastic hearts, or small stuffed animal, line the kids up in teams. The first person in each team is given a heart to place under their chin. The first in line must pass it to the next in line, but neither can use their hands. The first team to get the heart all the way to the end of the line is the winner.

Valentine Gobble - Spread a pile of wrapped candy on a table or large tray. Give each guest a container like a small bag, bowl, or paper cup. Set a timer for 30 seconds and have the kids get as much candy into their containers as possible without using their hands. When time is up, the one with the most pieces wins, but everyone gets to keep the candy they maneuvered into their containers.

Valentine Memory Game - Place a few themed items such as a heart candy, a doiley, a rose, etc. on a tray. Show the tray to the guests for a few seconds, then have them write down (or call out) as many items as they can remember.

How Many Words - Hand each person a sheet of paper printed out with a famous couples' names. Ask each person to make as many words as they can out of the letters in the names you've given them.

Valentine Scavenger Hunt - Create a list of several Valentine themed items. Break the kids into teams and give them the list. The first team to acquire all the items (or the team with the most) wins. You can make this a scavenger hunt inside a specific area and give them little clues to find it, or you can turn the teams loose on your neighbors to hunt for the items.

Pin the Lips on the Valentine - This is an old standby for many parties. Create a large heart with face. Make several pairs of lips and have the children play the game in the same way as Pin the Tail on The Donkey.

Candy Heart Relay - Position two bowls of heart candy at one end of the room and two empty bowls at the opposit end. Split the kids into two teams, give each team a large spoon, and line them up in front of the empty bowls. When the game starts, one person from each team will run down to the candy bowls, scoop up some candy with their spoons, race back, and drop their candy into the empty bowls. Then they should pass the spoon to the next person in the line, and so on. The first team to transfer all their candy wins.

Who's Got The Love - This game would be played the same as "Hot Potato" only you should pass around a Valentine themed stuffed animal.

Cupid Tag - The same as any other game of tag, only the person who is it is "Cupid."

There's probably lots of other games you can adapt to a Valentine theme... Use your imagination and have a ball!

What To Serve

Food for a Valentine Party is also fairly straight forward to make or purchase. Don't make it overly complicated, just 'lovey dovey.'

When you set up your serving table, you'll want to think of it like kind of a buffet. Cover your table with a red or pink table cloth. Set out your food, plates, napkins, plastic ware, etc. I usually put drinks at one end with cups, finger foods at the opposite end, and 'real' food in the middle. After I get all the food placed, then I put some little decorations out to dress up the table -- in this case, a bunch of cut out paper hearts work well. Remember, the food is part of your overall presentation.

Heart Shaped Cupcakes - Whip up a batch of your favorite cupcake mix. Line your cupcake tins with paper baking liners. Fill the liners up half way, then place one small marble or a 1/2-inch ball of aluminum foil between each liner and one side of the cupcake tin. This will push the paper and the batter to form of a heart when it bakes. Bake the cupcakes according to package directions and decorate them any way you want.

Valentine Cookies - Make a batch of suger cookies and then use Valentine cookie cutters to make shaped cookies. Decorate them any way you want.

Sweetheart Brownies - Make a batch of brownies according to the package directions and then bake. When they come out of the oven, sprinkly a bunch of sweetheart candy (the kind with the printed sayings on it) all over the top. While the brownies are still warm, you can push the candy into the top of the brownie instead of just letting the candy lay on top.

Heart Shaped Rice Krispy Treats - You can get the recipe for this off the side panel of any box of Rice Krispies, then simply shape them into hearts. You can also drizzle some pink or red icing on top to make them more special.

Foaming Love Potion - You'll need a can of frozen pink lemonade concentrate, raspberry sherbert, and 36 ounces of 7-up. Make up the lemonade in a pitcher as directed. In a dessert cup mix about a cup of lemonade with a large scoop of sherbert. Add 7-up to taste to make single servings. You can also make this up in a big punch bowl if you want.

Cupid's Arrows - Shake and bake some chicken tenders and cook them up. Provide some ranch dressing as a dip, and tell the kids that they are Cupid's arrows.

Heartwiches - Make peanut butter and jelly or chicken salad sandwiches. Use a cookie cutter to make them heart shaped.

Other Snacks

You'll want to add some other muchies to the party table to make sure that everyone has something to eat. Chips, popcorn, pretzels, trail mix, Valentine candy, etc. all work well. In addition, you'll want to provide other drinks besides the punch... especially water, but you may also want to include soda or drink boxes.

Don't Let Them Leave Empty Handed

When it comes to party favors and prizes, you'll have to consider your audience. Older kids will appreciate things like pads of paper, special pens, stamps, finger games, etc. for party favors. A pre-teen audience may lean more toward temporary tattoos, stickers, puzzle books, etc. Candy and gum usually works well for everyone. If you're child wants to give everyone a valentine, they could also provide that in the favor bags.

In addition, you may want to consider special memory favors for your guests. You could set up a photo booth, for example, and use a digital camera and printer on the spot. See Memory Making for more ideas.

If you are really hard up for prizes for your party games -- something that might be especially difficult for a teen party, you might actually consider money as the prize. I'm not talking about a lot of money, just a buck or two per prize. You may want to go higher on more difficult games, it's up to you. Using money as the prize has some distinct advantages. Everyone likes money, so you won't have to worry about if the kids will like the prizes you came up with. In addition, you'll probably come out cheaper by handing out cash prizes instead of buying prizes.

You can always come up with clever ways to hand out the money so that it seems more special. For example, you could put the money folded up inside a balloon so that the recipient has to pop the balloon to find out how much money then have won.

If you decide to purchase party favors and prizes, Oriental Trading Company can be a life saver. It's a great place to pick up some cheap prizes, decorations, and even Trick-or-Treat items.