The sweetest Valentine's day gifts are made from sweets

My girlfriend seems to set the creativity bar quite high during Valentine's Day gift giving. the past two years she has combined her sweet nature with a sweet tooth to make creative and inexpensive personalized gifts for me.

You don't need to buy custom candy hearts to give a personalized message. Two years ago my girlfriend glued conversation hearts onto a piece of card stock with a carefully scripted message for me that used candy hearts right out of a bag.

Last year she gave me 365 gum balls. Each one was wrapped in aluminum foil with a tiny slip of paper listing something she loved about me, liked doing with me, or will always remember from our past. The idea came from doing the same with Hershey's Kisses but since I'm not a huge chocolate fan she picked a candy I do like.

After the jump, a list of other ideas of how to make this sweet day even sweeter with a little time, a bit of sugar and a little love.

• Make a big card using some poster board, a marker, and candy bars. Just look through the candy section of the store and try to fit their names into sentences. If there are some flavors that neither of you like just print out some images from the Candy Wrapper Museum to fill in for the real things.
• Gather the ingredients to make a batch of your own hard candy. As long as you have a candy thermometer you probably have all the rest of the ingredients around. All you need is sugar, light corn syrup, water, food coloring and flavoring. You could make the candy before the 14th and spell words out with the mixture before it hardens. Just spread the cooling candy on waxed paper. Or gather the ingredients and make a batch together on Valentine's Day. A dusting of powdered sugar keeps the pieces from sticking together if you put them in a bowl or bag.
• Use your sweetheart's favorite chocolate bars and make a custom wrapper. First wrap the bar with aluminum foil and then wrap the candy bar with a simple loop of paper that is taped on the seam. Use graphics software on your computer to make your own labels or decorate them with any of your favorite craft supplies. Consider putting coupons, sweepstakes, and other perks on the inside of the wrapper. You even could give each label a point value which could be collected and redeemed for items in a catalog which you create.