Valentine Day's Houses

I really like Valentine's Day. No big obligations, but lots of room to do something fun. And after all, it's a candy holiday!

And speaking of candy: while looking at the jars of bright, leftover Christmas candy, I was reminded of an article I read where people bought Christmas candy on clearance and separated it into green for Saint Patrick's Day and red for Valentine's Day. That idea and the fun we had making gingerbread houses at Christmas suddenly combined with an idea: Valentine houses. We invited a couple of little neighbor friends this afternoon and had at it.



The house glue was royal icing (a little on the runny side) in an icing bag. It's always nice to use a twist tie on the end if little people are using the "squirter" and a cup for it to rest in between uses.



We added some conversation hearts and valentine m&ms to the red/white kisses, cinnamon dots, and candy coated kisses. The candy canes were there to make hearts (put two together), but they turned out a little too big for our houses. Because I thought that the contrast with all the red and white candies would be fun, we used chocolate graham crackers for the walls and roof.



The kids came up with some fun creations. Here are the bushes my son created outside his house. I thought they looked a little like aliens. But it was OK, because they got morphed into a tree soon after this picture.

This little house is sporting a cute walkway:



And here's the whole Valentine village:



How nice, indeed!