Valentine’s Day can be divisive, but this year make it collaborative! Instead of giving a coupon book, make an activity book to share with your significant other or friends. 

Design the book to create fun and exciting activities to do together. If you like crossword puzzles, add one to the book. How about coloring? Nothing builds anticipation better than coloring hand drawn (or printed) exotic coloring book pages together. Have a poem or a piece of writing? Include that, too. You can also get creative by cropping photos of the two of you into different scenarios to subtly suggest date ideas, your future together, or things you might want to do later that night. You could also create a storyboard of your relationship together (this is sometimes funnier when you haven’t known the person very long.) Make sure to exaggerate mundane details and or crop your faces onto really unusual magazine bodies (body builders or models for example) to emphasize your good features!

You will need:

• A picture book from Goodwill
• Magazines
• Glue (glue stick or whatever you’ve got will do fine)
• Scissors
• Markers

Start by designing the cover of your book. This will make the book feel like an exciting, quirky gift. Consider using bright colors, fire, and sultry imagery that you find in magazines, or some of the books available at Goodwill. You can also paint over images for a layering effect. Play with the composition. Try to have an even mix of small, medium, and large shapes, or perhaps just use a picture of the two of you (the more humor you infuse into this, the better.) Use a thin layer of glue to adhere all of the pieces to the cover. 

Once the cover is finished, glue your activities to the interior pages.  It can also be fun to include removable games.  For example:  cut out a funny shape/animal etc., from a magazine with a hole cut out for the head.  Then have fun Instagramming yourselves by holding the image in front of the other person, so that their face fills the picture! Endless fun J . There are many possibilities so get started and see what kind of fun and romantic games you can come up with!