Valentine Countdown Advent Calendar

Valentine’s Day Coutdown Advent Calendar: easy DIY countdown calendar filled with treats to help your children count down to the big day.

Making the Celebrations Last a Little Longer

Valentine’s comes and goes too fast for little ones, so here’s a way to stretch out the fun, with a really easy countdown advent calendar. It’s similar to the Christmas activity advent calendar I made for my girls at Christmas, but this one is a little more low key. Each day they get to open a little bag and find a treat inside, and a fun Valentine’s day joke. Simple for mom, and still lots of fun for little ones.

Inexpensive Treats

I started out with a trip to the dollar and party stores for some little treats, I also shopped through the treat bowl at home and re-used some of the Christmas treats that never got eaten. For out treats I alternated each day with a sweet treat and a little toy treat. The sweets are truffles, red and pink jelly beans, caramel squares, and some valentine chocolates, you could use what ever treat your kids love.

For the toy treats I included bubbles, pink bouncy balls, stamps, stickers, erasers, a pink and red bead kit, and heart shaped balloons.

Here’s a little tip, at the party store you can buy things individually for a few cents from the loot bag section, so if you only have one or two kiddos to buy for you won’t be stuck with a package of eight.

A Joke

I thought about including a little activity, or even a bible verse about love in the little bags.  But in the end I decided on a joke each day. My kids loved the lunch box notes I found on-line and included in their lunch each day for Christmas.  So I thought it would be fun to use some Valentine’s Day lunch box jokes for this calendar. I found mine here, and here. Just down-load, print, cut up and slip one in each bag.

Decorate the Bags and Add Numbers

To decorate the little bags, I used a heart punch to cut out hearts.  Then, I used a dollar store number stencil and a marker to add the numbers. Once the treats were in the bags, I used some pink thread on my sewing machine and stitched them up. I love how the stitching looks, and it also helps excited little ones to keep from peeking.

To hang the little bags, I  decorated some wooden clothes pins with washi tape.  Love how they turned out. I hung it all up on the fireplace.  I used some some sweet pink pom-pom yarn I had, and little string of heart shaped LED lights.

My kids can’t wait to get started opening the little bags tomorrow.  With a countdown to Valentine’s day, life really is a party!