Impress Your Boyfriend with Beautiful Valentine Gifts that are Homemade: 10 Gifts He Will Hardly Believe You Made (2018)

Ingredients

• 1 package white cake mix
• ingredients like oil and egg or milk, as required in the cake mix
• 2 cups blackberries
• 2 cups strawberries
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 cup raspberries
• 2 cups white icing

Instructions

• You can use the cake mix recipe available in the market if you are a beginner, their proportions are just perfect and you can concentrate on just decorating the cake the way you want.
• Grease an 8 inches heart-shaped cake pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make the cake mix as directed by the instructions in the cake mix packet and pour contents in the heart-shaped pan. Bake according to the instructions.
• Remove from the oven and let the cake cook on a wire rack.
• Cut the cake in two halves and generously apply the white icing on top and in between the two layers. Arrange all the berries in a design as you like.

Heart Shaped Cookies

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 pound confectioners' sugar
• 1 large egg white
• Gel food color (optional)

• To make the cookie dough you need to whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Then beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla essence. Reduce the flame and combine everything thoroughly.
• Next, divide the dough into half and flatten into disks. Wrap each portion of dough in plastic and freeze until firm for approximately about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Remove 1 disk of dough which has been chilling in the freezer for 20 minutes and let it stand for 10 minutes. Roll out 1/8 inches thick dough between two pieces of floured parchment paper. Keep dusting with the flour as and when required. Cut out heart-shaped cookies with a cookie cutter of a heart shape and then using a spatula, transfer these into the baking sheets. Continue making more hearts with the rest of the dough.
• Bake the cookies for 12 minutes and when half-way through, turn them over to ensure that the entire cookies get uniformly golden brown in color.


• For the royal icing:
• Combine confectioner's sugar and royal icing until the icing develops soft peaks. Add food color if desired and when your icing is ready, you can store it in an airtight container for 3 days in the fridge.
• Decorate the cookies with the icing as needed.

Ingredients

• Fillable tea bags (coffee filters will also work!)
• Pink or red thread
• Sewing machine
• Loose tea of any flavor that you like
• Pink or red baker’s twine, string, or yarn
• Pink or red felt
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Teaspoon

Instructions

• Start by drawing a heart onto your tea bag.
• Sew around the heart, just inside the pencil line, leaving a small gap near the bottom.
• Cut out the sewn heart, making sure to cut off all pencil marks. Alternately, you can use a food safe marker.
• Use your teaspoon to fill the tea bag with loose tea and then sew the gap closed.
• Attach a long piece of baker’s twine to the tea bag.
• Then cut a small heart out of felt and attach it at the other end of the baker’s twine to make a little “tag” for your tea bag!
• Pack them all in a cute little gift bag and gift your boyfriend for Xmas.

Ingredients

• Silicone heart molds (or a tray)
• Microwave
• Freezer
• Spoon
• Bowl
• Cooking chocolate bars

Instructions

• Melt the chocolate bars in the microwave until smooth. Microwave for about 15 seconds at a time. Be careful not to overcook the chocolate or it will burn. The chocolate can be melted in a double boiler also instead of the microwave.
• Pour the melted chocolate into the heart shaped molds. Put the chocolate into the freezer until hardened.
• Leave them out for one minute and pop out of the heart molds. Drizzle some melted white chocolate on the hearts for decoration.
• Store them in a jar and decorate the jar with some ribbons and confetti before gifting to your boyfriend.

Mocktail

• Pour some Roohafsa in a heart-shaped mold ice-tray till you get heart-shaped roohafsa cubes. Pour these in a tall glass and fill in with some sprite. Your Roohafsa heart-shaped mocktail is ready.

Starters

• Cut your bread in a heart shape with the help of heart-shaped bread cutter or you could use a knife also. Make a sandwich using mayonnaise, coleslaw and shredded vegetables of your choice.
• For the second starter, you can make heart-shaped potato fries. You need to dice potatoes in heart shape using a knife. This will take some time and you can pour in the cut outs in a bowl of water to avoid letting the potatoes turn black. Mix these in a batter of chickpea flour and your heart-shaped potato pakodas are ready for starters. Serve with spicy green chutney.

Main Course

• For the main course, if you are making a dry vegetable, remember to cut your carrots, potatoes, onions, bell peppers in heart-shape. Garnish your dals and gravies with cream and coriander decorated in a heart shape. Lastly, make chappattis in a heart shape too.

Heart Shaped Candles

• Wax
• Heart-shaped cookie cutters
• Colored wax crayons
• Wick and wick tabs
• Zip lock bag
• Popsicle sticks or a clothes peg

• Cut a piece of wick double the height of the cookie cutter. Thread it through the hole in the center of the wick tab and squeeze the hole flat using pliers. Next, put the cookie cutter on the zip lock bag and center the wick in the shape of a heart.
• Use a clothes peg to hold the wick in its place. This will prevent it from floating away when you pour the wax.
• Melt the wax in a glass bowl kept over a pan of hot water or in a microwave-safe container. When all the wax has melted, mix in color using the wax crayons. You can shave pieces of the crayon in or stir the crayon into the wax.
• Now hold the cookie cutter in place and pour the hot wax into the space between the sticks. Make sure that the wick is still centered and leave it to set. Once it’s ready, it should be easy to peel off the plastic and push the candle out of the cutter.
• Make a few of these heart-shaped candles in different colors and gift these in a pretty box.

Heart Shaped Soap

• Nonstick 9-inch square pan
• Heart-shape cookie cutter
• Heatproof glass measuring cup
• Glycerin soap
• Bench scraper
• Soap colorant or food coloring
• Spray bottle filled with rubbing alcohol
• Cutting board

• Using a bench paper, cut soap into small pieces and fill in the measuring cup. Microwave on medium heat until melted and then stir the liquid. Add colorant and stir. Now pour the liquid into pan and spray with alcohol to remove the bubbles.
• After it hardens at room temperature, freeze it for 10 minutes. Turn it upside down onto the cutting board and carve out heart shapes of soap with heart-shaped cookie cutter.
• Put them all in a jar or a box and write your own personal love message on the gift box.

Heart Shaped Collage

• White colored cardboard sheet
• Black marker pen
• Glue
• Scissors
• Photographs of your boyfriend, his family and pictures of both of you together.

• Cut out the pictures in the shape of a heart or if you do not want to do that, you can only cut the cardboard in the shape of a heart. Stick the pictures with glue on the cardboard.
• Your heart-shaped picture collage is ready. Ensure that you select some really endearing photos of your journey together so far. This will be a cherish-able keepsake. You can also get the collage laminated once done to protect it from any wear and tear.

Pop-Up Card

• Two different colored glace papers
• Glue and scissors
• Markers and pens

• Fold the sheet of paper into half.
• Draw a small heart in the centre of the fold.
• Make a larger heart just outside the outline of the first one.
• Cut both the hearts leaving an inch from the top uncut.
• Unfold the paper and put glue on the back, then stick it to your other piece of colored paper to create the front and back of the card.
• Open the card and adjust the cards in such a way that they pop out once opened.
• Your endearing pop-up heart shaped card for your love is ready. Write your personal love message on the card and gift it to him on Valentine's Day.

Embroidered Handkerchief

• Good quality handkerchiefs; plain in different colors
• Colored threads and needle

• Take a handkerchief and start embroidering a heart shape on one corner. You can use a pencil to first make an outline. Cross stitch or running stitch is quite easy for a beginner.
• Use different colored threads in all the handkerchiefs and make small embroidered hearts in all the handkerchiefs.
• You can decorate with sequence and stones inside or just mark his initials inside with a marker pen.
• These embroidered handkerchiefs will be a perfect Valentine's Day Gift which adds your personal touch!