Whoo. The site is back up and running. It was absolute chaos with Bluehost losing my site data and then needing to re-post everything from my backups. Definitely gonna switch hosting services in three years from now when my current plan ends… BUT, now that things are mostly back in order, I can get back to posting.

Today I want to share with you my little Valentine’s Day craft for Alex! I was on Pinterest when I saw a wedding invitation in the style of a secret agent spy letter. It reminded me a lot of those “solve the murder” puzzle boxes that put you in the shoes of a detective. I really loved the idea and came up with the idea to put together a Valentine’s puzzle. He must solve each clue to spell out the words to the question (“BE MINE?”).

I used yellow cardstock to fold into a yellow/manila file folder. It’s hard to see in the pictures to the right, but I also cut out on the back a tab the way real folders have them. I then designed a secret agent ID card from a template I saw online and had it printed. I bet the guy at Walgreens thought I was nuts, but oh well. Inside, I paper-clipped the main letter that explains the task at hand. I just typed it on Word using a typewriter-esque font and added spaces for the seven letters of “BE MINE?”.

I then designed the clues based off ideas I found for kids spy-themed birthdays on Pinterest. For instance, I used lemon juice to make invisible ink that can be seen when heated. Similarly, used a mason cipher generator for another clue. You can see it vaguely inside the envelope to the left. I also made sure to add a note of which letter of the answer to use if necessary.

Some of the clues required creativity to solve. I used a simple refraction experiment for kids for one of the clues. If you put a drawing in a ziploc baggie and use sharpie to only draw part of the picture on the outside of the bag, when you place it in water, the contents disappear and only what you outlined will remain. Here is an example in a video.

I didn’t show all the clues I made, but hopefully you enjoy this idea and maybe will find it inspiring for future holidays/events. I am looking forward to Alex’s response to my question, although I am pretty confident on the answer haha. [EDIT: He said yes to being my Valentine! ❤️] I still think it’s important to ask our significant others to be ours on Valentine’s Day as a way to show care and love. We get this holiday as a really convenient excuse to dote upon our SO, so why not take advantage of that?

Happy reading,
-Beppa