In college you don’t have a lot of money, but I realized quickly that you don’t need a lot of money to show someone that you love them.  I got a little creative in my Valentine’s gifts in the past and only had to spend a few dollars on them.  Personally, I think that those handmade, heartfelt gifts are the best presents you can give anyway. 

Here are a few of my gift ideas that cost near to nothing:

1. A dictionary of love: This is not for the impatient or the easily bored.  For a few bucks I bought a dictionary and went page by page, highlighting and circling words that had to do with love or that just reminded me of the one I loved.  It took me forever, but the end result was really, really cute.  Unfortunately that relationship didn’t work out and I’m bummed that I wasted all that time on him, but I had a great time turning a dictionary into a scrapbook for him.

 

2. A scrapbook of old Facebook messages: I just finished this for my current boyfriend.  We live in a world where our conversations are no longer face to face, but over the phone, through a text, or across the web.  I decided to use this virtual aspect to my advantage and went back onto my old Facebook messages and printed out over 2 years of ‘letters’ that my boyfriend and I sent each other.  I bought a little notebook and glued each message onto each page so that he has a book of our silly love letters that we wrote over the years.

3. “Love letters”: When I was away for the semester I decided to write letters to my boyfriend.  After a few weeks I had a bunch to give to him, but I decided to keep them and continue writing for a little while longer until Valentine’s Day.  I had over a month’s worth of letters saved so I tied them all together and gave them to him as his gift.  It was fun to read them together!

4. Profess your love on Post-its: Buy a stack of Post-it notes and on each one write a thing that you love about your significant other.  It takes a while and a little creativity, but it’s pretty fun coming up with 100+ reasons.  I put little memories on some of the Post-its too to change it up.

Do you make your own gifts?  Do you like getting homemade gifts? What do you think of my cutesy ideas?