The Easiest Way to Give the Gift of Love (+ Free Printable)

I know Valentine’s is long gone. You’re probably wondering why I’m writing a post about the gift of love. You may be thinking, “Did you I forget to post this in February?” or  “I shouldn’t be writing about Pi Day.”

No, I did not lose my mind and simply forget about that Valentine’s Day. On the contrary. I’ve actually had this post in mind for while and purposely decided to hold off on it. You see, I have a problem with our culture. We only seem to celebrate love once year – maybe twice if you count Christmas and birthdays. That’s not exactly a good thing. We should be celebrating love everyday. The passing of Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean love shouldn’t be celebrated.

And no, this celebrating of love doesn’t always need to be about romance and family. With the hustle and bustle of work, bills, laundry, dinner and more I think it’s just as important to love ourselves as we do others.  Loving ourselves daily is just enough to give us the strength needed to make it through the day. Of course, finding that love and inspiration on a daily basis isn’t always that easy.

So a few weeks ago, I decided to do something about it. To show my Zumba students that I loved their presence, give them a reason to love themselves and the hope of each day, I gave them the gift of 365 days of love, motivation, and inspiration. Rather than giving them 365 separate notes, I packaged them in a special jar.

They were a big hit in my class so I figured I’d share it in this post for others who want to give the gift of love without breaking the bank.

Here’s hot it works. Everyday the recipient is supposed to pick a note that has a little quote about self-love, beauty, success and inspiration.

I created a word document template of little rectangle shapes to type up my 365 quotes – Think Chinese fortune cookie notes. Then I typed up all the unique little one liners I could find that had to do with love and motivation. Some of them were the Terrific Quips I post at the end of blog posts. (Don’t worry, I know writing 365 little heart-warming notes is tedious so I included a free printable of them below.) You can thank me later!

After I typed them up and proofread, I printed all the little notes out on lavender paper because who doesn’t love a pop of color? (I used something like this.)Of course, you can use any color paper like. I cut up all the little pieces of paper and folded them in half before placing in the jar. Be sure to give yourself a lot of time before doing this since folding and cutting 365 pieces paper can be really tedious.

Finally I taped on my pretty label, put a cute a cupcake liner on top for decoration and got ready to give my little dancers a little taste of love.

Everyone loved the little gift of love; especially since it was so  unexpected being well after Valentine’s Day. Of course, I’m confident they would have enjoyed them anyway because who doesn’t need a little reminder to love themselves and the beauty of the day every once in a while? I’m still getting text messages from my Zumba participants about how cute the idea is and what special love note they pulled from the jar that day. My plan is to keep a little stock of these ready and give them out to people as I see fit.

What’s great about this gift that it can work for any holiday or time of year. So next time, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, a birthday or any gift giving day comes up and you’re strapped for cash remember this!

Here’s all the links to the printables. Enjoy!

Love Notes Page 1 ( Days Number 1-57)

Love Notes Page 2 (Days 58-114)

Love Notes Page 3 (Days 59-171)

Love Notes Page 4 (Days 172-228)

Love Notes Page 5 (Days 229-285)

Love Notes Page 6 (Days286-342)

Love Notes Page 7 (Days 343-365)

Love Note Jar Label

TERRIfic Quip: Love is the one gift that never goes out of style.