Valentine’s Day Treasure Hunt, Three Ideas

Scott and I have a tradition of creating treasure hunts for each other. He started it! When we were first dating I came back to my apartment one day after a business trip (or long day at work? or maybe just a Monday?) to find a small trail of clues from my kitchen to a closet to my computer and then to a stuffed animal. I was smitten.

Treasure Hunt Idea #1

Here is one hunt I set up for Scott on the first Valentine’s Day that we lived in the same apartment after we moved to San Francisco. I hid a dozen small cards around the apartment with messages. I put them in spots where he’d find them while getting ready for work in the morning. For example I tucked a card that said “I love your smile” in the medicine cabinet next to the toothpaste. I hid more inside a coffee cup, under his pillow, his computer bag, the pocket of his coat and inside the shoes that I knew he’d be putting on.

I made the cards above by cutting 1.5 inch cards out of colorful cardstock and using a heart punch, though you can cut the hearts by hand. My original cards were created with scissors (all I had at the time) and were all a bit off center.

Treasure Hunt Idea #2

If you want to send a message why not scramble it? This is an idea I’d been planning on using this year but, oops, I guess he’ll be expecting it. For these I bought tiny envelopes, found at a local scrapbooking store, and filled them with punched out hearts.

Each heart has one or two letters on the front and a number on the back. Once each one is found and put in order they spell out a sweet message. You can use as many hearts as you need for whatever message you have in mind.

Treasure Hunt Idea #3

Scott did this for my birthday a while back but it would be just as great at Valentine’s Day. He hid little toy capsules filled with toy rings (they echoed my engagement ring) around the house. Then, at different times, I was given two maps. One was numbered on vellum, the other was a layout of the house. Put together they revealed locations of the capsules.

Treasure hunts like these don’t have to be elaborate to create utter delight. Scott and I have been together for 13 (14?) Valentine’s days and there have been flowers and restaurants and probably chocolates but it’s the treasure hunts like these that I remember the most of all.

· comments [12] · 02-12-2013 · categories:holidays ·

12 responses so far ↓

1 Jesse // Feb 12, 2013 at 7:31 am

These are such sweet ideas! We have made several treasure hunts for each other over the years too, and they are so much fun. I like your ideas a lot!
2 Leah // Feb 12, 2013 at 9:22 am

Fabulous idea! Will make my BF’s gift that much more exciting! Thanks for the inspiration XO
3 kat // Feb 12, 2013 at 10:21 am

I love these ideas. Such a great show of love without going way over the top.
4 deb // Feb 12, 2013 at 10:22 am

Is your old “planning to elope” blog gone? I tried to click through from your old engagement announcement post and it wouldn’t let me in :(
5 Anne-Marie Faiola // Feb 13, 2013 at 12:51 pm

What a super cute idea! =)
6 Seanna Lea // Feb 13, 2013 at 6:16 pm

These are lovely ideas. I’ll have to try one of these for my husband for his birthday.
7 megan // Feb 14, 2013 at 1:13 am

Thanks everyone!

Deb — Oooh my, something is wrong there! I’ll fix it in the morning. Sorry about that.
8 nazila // Feb 14, 2013 at 8:12 am

I love this. I have to admit after a millennium together I am jaded by st. valentine’s day, but this is great.
9 Liz J in Central Illinois // Feb 14, 2013 at 11:59 am

I definitely have to try something like this for my husband someday – – it’s too late for Valentine’s Day since that is TODAY (oh my, it crept up on me!) but his Birthday is next week, so…… :-D
10 J. // Jan 14, 2014 at 5:24 pm

i love the map one! my boyfriends job is dealing with different kinds of maps so hopfully he’ll apreciate it. i’ll have to work extra hard to make it perfect. now to find certian little something for the gifts.
thanks!!
11 megan // Jan 14, 2014 at 10:49 pm

J – I didn’t note this in this blog entry but one of the things that was delightful about the overlay map was that Scott put one of the hidden items in the glovebox of my car which we park off of the alley behind the house. I was given the numbered overlay first and the gridded map second so the numbered overlay with the one way off in the car completely threw me off. I wrote more about this and showed more about the maps previously.
12 Allegra Ghiloni // Feb 15, 2014 at 7:38 am

I did Treasure Hunt Idea 1 yesterday for my boyfriend for Valentines and he loved it. It was so nice seeing his reaction each time he found a little card in the house and he said it made his feel really special all day. Thank you for the great idea! I even did a post about it on my new blog http://jewelleryremade.blogspot.it/ because I think it could be a really lovely thing to do for birthday and anniversaries to! It made the day really nice :)