Throwing a Valentine’s Day party provides an opportunity for friends and family to gather together and celebrate the holiday. Creating Valentine’s Day-themed foods, games and activities is fairly simple, given that almost anything heart-shaped, red and pink can be successfully incorporated into your event. As you consider ideas for your Valentine’s Day party, be sure that they are geared toward the ages of your party guests.

Serve Heart-Shaped Cupcakes

The neat thing about serving heart-shaped cupcakes at a Valentine’s Day party is that decorating them can serve as a party activity. Disney’s FamilyFun.com suggests placing a marble or half-inch aluminum foil ball into the muffin pan between the cupcake liner and the side of the pan to create a heart-shared cupcake. By doing this, the ball pushes the paper and batter in to create a crevice in the circular-shaped cake. Once baked, this crevice will resemble the notch in the top of a heart. For parties geared toward children, several small disposable cups filled with different-colored frostings and plastic spoons or knives make for age-appropriate decorating tools. Heart-shaped candies and red and pink sprinkles can be used to decorate the cupcakes. For teen- or adult-themed parties, a cupcake-decorating contest can be a fun activity. More elaborate decorating tools, like decorating piping, can be used.

Make Sweet Sachets

Depending on the age of your party guests, your Valentine-themed sachets can be as simple or as elaborate you would like. Children can create their sachet by cutting out two equal sized heart-shaped pieces of felt and gluing them together. Both red and pink felt are appropriate Valentine-themed color choices. It’s important to leave a 1-inch opening at the top of the sachet, so dried lavender or potpourri can be stuffed into it. Once the sachet is stuffed, the opening can be glued together to complete it. Children may wish to write a phrase like “I love you” on the front of their sachet. Adults and older children who have basic sewing skills can create their sachet by placing two 4-inch square swatches of wool fabric back-to-back and hand sewing them together. As an alternative, the fabric can be cut out in the shape of a heart. Leaving an opening in the sachet will allow you to stuff dried herbs, lavender or potpourri into the sachet before closing it off. MarthaStewart.com suggests cross-stitching a heart shape in a contrasting color onto the front of the sachet.

Have A Candy Toss

No Valentine’s Day party is complete without playing a holiday-themed game. The candy toss game is an appropriate choice since almost anyone can play. Drawing a heart-shaped candy box onto a large piece of cardboard will serve as the board for the candy toss game. Cutting large holes into the box creates the openings for the beanbags to pass through. Brown beanbags are used in this game, because they resemble the chocolates that go into Valentine’s Day candy boxes. Younger children can stand closer to the board to play and older children and adults can stand further back.