How I Failed at Finding the Perfect Anti-Valentine’s Day Book (A Call for Recommendations)

I love Valentine’s Day. It’s the perfect excuse to be really cheesy and give things to people you care about. In the past, I’ve always given really sappy gifts and cards to my friends, like these matchbox valentines that I made a couple years ago.

Some people don’t like Valentine’s Day, though, or they’re going through relationship problems. This holiday can be hard if you’re going through a break up— any day can be hard, but the incessant mentions of love and eternity that permeate our culture around the 14th don’t make things easier. Neither does the flip side: bitterness and cliches about women watching sappy movies while crying into their pints of chocolate ice cream. I don’t watch many movies, but I love to read. And when I’m upset, even the slightest mention of something sad in a book can set me off.

SO, for the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to put together a post highlighting novels for people who weren’t really looking forward to Valentine’s Day. I wanted to make a list of great books that wouldn’t catch readers off guard: no cheating lovers, no abuse, no sudden deaths, no relationship-driven emotional scarring. Books that are well-written but don’t rely on romance as a plot device to move the stories along.

DIY Instagram Magnets!

Instagram is kind of taking the world by storm. So many people I know are completely obsessed with it, and some of them— some of them— are really good at using the application. If you are one of those people or, like me, you know somebody who is (who also conveniently happens to have a birthday coming up), then this DIY project is for you.

A few months ago, I came across a website that creates magnets out of Instagram pictures— 9 magnets for 15 dollars. I thought it was a great gift idea, but you have to give the website access to the account from which you want to pull the pictures and I wanted to use someone else’s photos, not my own. So I ruled that website out and decided to DIY some magnets myself. The largest problem I encountered was that I couldn’t save pictures from Instagram myself. This was easily remedied by a quick Internet search, which led me to Copygram. Copygram pulls up the Instagram app in a web browser, which allowed me to save the pictures I wanted to use onto my computer. NOTE: Don’t use pictures from other users without their consent, as that’s illegal.

Once I had the pictures saved, I got started creating the magnets. I am so bad at Photoshop, y’all. I mean, I can very basically edit a picture, but beyond that I’m completely lost. I’d had “Photoshop proficient” on my resume since high school, but I took it off immediately after I frantically gchatted my friend Elias demanding help resizing images and made him talk me through the program for half an hour. ANYWAY. Here’s what you do.

Gifted: DIY Etched Glasses

One of my very favourite people recently got engaged. I gave her and her fiance these champagne flutes, which are etched with their initials, as part of their engagement present. I wanted to share them here, not only because I love my friends and am so happy for them but because etched glassware is a perfect, easy, personalized gift to give this holiday season. Monogrammed pint or wine glasses paired with craft beer or a nice bottle of cabernet (or a beer-of-the-month subscription or a trip to a winery…) would be appreciated by any hostess or friend. I made scotch glasses for my dad last year for Christmas and he loved them. You can also etch glass casserole dishes, tumblers, mirrors, etc.

Gifted: DIY Coasters

My plan was to start highlighting gift ideas and doing small gift guides at the end of November, but obviously that didn’t exactly pan out the way I wanted it to. However! There are still 20 days until Christmas, which sounds terrifying but is plenty of time to finish everything on your list.

I am a huge proponent of handmade everything: gifts, cards, food, packaging. I think that if you’re going to give gifts, especially to people that you know well, it means that much more when you take the time to write a heartfelt note or wrap something in a unique way rather than just signing your name to the bottom of a stock message and stuffing the whole thing in a bag. The present itself will be a lot more meaningful if you put a lot of thought into it and your relationship with the recipient rather than buying something off of a wish list. I also love donating to a charity in someone’s name and gifting them a little certificate that mentions the donation along with a small gift that fits the theme. With that in mind, I’m going to feature a few very easy DIYs that can be done last-minute for the holiday season, starting with coasters.