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On Valentine’s Day, our love can be shown in so many ways other than buying, buying, buying. Or even (in my case), making, making, making.

I recently read this: “My mother’s friend told her husband over 50 years ago not to waster on buying her a Valentine. So he gives her the same one every year with a new date.”

What I love about this idea is not only that it saves money and emobodies the green ethic of avoiding purchasing new, but there is something just so sweet about it. Imagine receiving the same Va,entine for 50 or 60 years! Now that’s “ putting the meaning in the greening” as we like to say.

Create a delicious Valentine’s Day all day long!

At lunch:

-apples with heart carved into them

-sandwiches cut in the shape of hearts

-homemade heart shaped potato chips

For dinner:

- Beet soup with floating heart shaped croutons

- Salad with beets cut into heart shapes

- A heart-shaped soufflé for main dish or dessert

- One perfect organic, shade-grown, fair trade chocolate

The idea is to think hearts all day long, so how about hiding messages of love around the house for your love to discover?

Or do something sweet in his name like volunteering for an organization he supports. 

Attach ( an admittedly hokey) but fun card, to ordinary items:

- On a shoe: I love you heart and sole (purposefully misspelled)

- On a recipe card: A recipe for love

- On a pancake turner:  My heart flips for you

- On an LED light bulb: You light up my life

Give a Valentine’s twist to games:

- Pin the heart on me ( played with tape on the hearts, no pins!)

- Hide and seek hearts-hide hearts around the house and see who can find the most in two or three minutes. The winner gets the same number of kisses as the hearts found

- Heart word games like “ How many words can you make from the letters in ‘I will love you for all the days of my life.”

Celebrate Green with romantic Valentine’s gifts you  haven’t thought of including gorgeously green lingerie…

- Make some natural rose petal tea using a heart-shaped tea infuser from www.thisnext.com. In a heart-shaped cup from www.bitsandpieces.com

- Custom artwork of you or your love (or you and your love) made with recyucled junk mail www.schimmelart.com

- Organic wine and spa collection or organic and Fair Trade wine and chocolate set, www.ecoexpress.com

- St. Valentine gift box from www.larrybeans.com with organic, fairly traded, shae grown coffee, three bards of organic Fair Trade chocolate and a “Coffee is like kissing” brew guide,

- Heart-shaped cinnamon scented 100% beeswax candles from www.bigdipperwaxworks.com

Lingerie

- Silky and luxurious hemp, silk, or bamboo, lingerie www.dreamsack.com

- Looks like our friends across the pond ( in England that is), are way ahead in developing new fabrics for lingerie. There are a couple of designers who’ve come out with bras made of Lenpur, a biodegradable fabric made from white pine tree clippings. Sounds like rough on the sking, but tit’s silky texture wins raves. Take a look at www.g98.fr

- Once again, England is tops for tops and bottoms. www. Enamore.co.uk offers the sexiest sustainable lingerie to be seen organic hemp and silk, soya and recycled fabrics-pricey, but luxurious.

- Knickers is the word for panties in England and www. GreenKnickers.org has some cuties handmade from hemp and silk that they will mail to the U.S.

WWW.eco-boudoir.com another UK lingerie company with a conscience, sells chic, Earth-Friendly under-duds and even gives you the opportunity to offset your carbon emissions when shipping to the US.

Organic cotton nighties from www.gaiam.com

WWW.Patagonia.com offers cute shorts and sporty bras made from materials that can be recycled by returning the worn garment directly to the company

Bamboo underwear made in Africa from www.budda.com

American Apparel sells sporty and affordable organic cotton undergarments.

For more frisky choices, try www. Buenodesign.ca, or www.urbanfoxeco.com.

Lynn Colwell and Core Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween.