Valentine’s Day is Friday and today is Monday. That’s plenty of time to come up with a gift idea. But an idea is not enough. You need to deliver on it. You could go the flower-and-candy route, but that’s hardly originally and unless you grew the flowers and made the candy, and it’s certainly not very makerly. But we’re here to help.
Here are 10 DIY Valentine’s Day gift ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Look for more Valentine’s Day content this week and check out Valentine’s Day page for extra inspiration.
Make cute, custom conversation heart soap with this fun tutorial from Sonya Nimri. She says: “This Valentine’s Day, get creative with the ever so useful and practical gift of soap. Not just any soap (because that would be plain boring) but soap displaying a special message for your love.”
Buying a dozen roses isn’t particularly original. But making them out of duct tape is.
Here’s a “open heart” LED project from Mark Devinck. He says: “It’s a great open source kit that uses a technique called Charliplexing for lighting up the LEDs. Why? Charlieplexing allows you to control each LED’s state individually.” Isn’t that romantic?
How’s this for passionate? Artist and jeweler Aurelie Dellasanta produced a series of pyrotechnic pieces of jewerly including this sacred heart pendant, which shoots sparks from its center when activated!
A well designed card is a perfectly acceptable gift—as long as your write something sweet inside. Check out this project from Omiyage Blogs.
Here’s a gift/project idea from MAKE reader Gerald Beranek: “Instead of the traditional Hallmark card and flowers, I decided to design and 3D print my own opening/closing/latching card for my wife on our 3 year wedding anniversary. I printed the base in red and the cove in black. I used my Makerbot Rep2 to do the printing. It was a fun little project and my wife and her family and friends loved it! She hands the 3D printed card around at all our family functions and you wouldn’t imagine the amusement about it! It is all because everyone knows I am a true maker at heart, but no one ever thought a card could be 3D printed(some friends and family still can’t imagine 3D printing!) . Check out his 3D printing facebook page: www.facebook.com/generationyworx
MAKE reader Hugo Strand submitted this idea for a paper robot: “I am mad about robots, and my wife allows it. So it seemed only natural that I made a small love robot for Valentine’s. I used the Papercritters generator to make a simple white critter. Then I decorated it very minimalistic. The front has a heart with her name on it. The back has ‘your Hugo’ across it. I couldn’t find the path to the generator from the papercritters.com frontpage, but I followed this link and just used the CLEAR button to get an all white figure. I think there is plenty of room to make this work for any kind of sweetheart, since there are plenty of ways to decorate it, both inside the software and after printout, just go bananas with glue and whatever’s in your kit box. It can get a little top heavy, so I suggest gluing it to a base of some sort.”
The TapeTricity Card, from MAKE pal Chris Connors, is a great first electronics project for kids who want to make an extra special Valentine’s Day card.
A handwritten note is cool. But how about an embroidered note that will last forever?
Our old friends Becky and Collin over at adafruit industries made this fancy tutorial for making an LED Ampli-Tie that lights up and reacts to sound. It’s perfect for the geek in your life.
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