RED ALL OVER

Scarlet, after all, is the order of the day. Help your kids dig up an all-red ensemble from their closets and drawers. Use ribbons or bric-a-brac for belts, shoelaces and hair ties. Paint nails with hearts in all the crazy shades of red polish you've collected. We have, in a weak moment, even tattooed our arms with beet juice, cutting a fresh beet into heart-shaped stamps. Here's an easy, handsome addition to the outfit.

BUTTON SLIPS: Dress up your shirt buttons by cutting romantic shapes out of a piece of felt (they should be about 1 to 2 inches tall and wide). We chose hearts, but you could try flowers, stars or whatever you like. Cut slits that are the size of your buttonhole in the center of the shapes, then slip them in place.

TESTER'S TIP: For a goofy-face button slip, glue on googly eyes above the slits.

HOMEMADE VALENTINES

I know a lot of kids, including one of my own, who love the glamorous, store-bought Valentine's Day cards. But if you've got any time to spare, homemade valentines are the most fun to give, even when you have to mass-produce them for everyone in your child's class. I suggest making the following cards the afternoon, or even the weekend, before Valentine's Day to avoid feeling crunched.

FINGERPRINTED HEARTS: This is the perfect little-kid card, although I like making them, too. Have your child use a nontoxic stamp pad you can also get away with nontoxic paint spread thinly on waxed paperto make fingerprint hearts. Stamp a V-shaped 5-inch heart by joining two index-finger prints at the bottoms. Once your kids master making hearts on scrap paper, they'll want to add them to folded notepaper or postcards, stamp the middle of a torn-paper heart card or stamp them on each frame of a construction paper accordion card.

PUNNY VALENTINES: Why are valentines filled with awful puns? I don't know, but I love it. Cut out letters and pictures of animals from magazines and arrange them into punny cards, using a bit of glue to hold them onto the paper. Some gems include a cat remarking, "I have felines for you"; a horse noting, "Bubba, you're my mane man"; or a dog sending this sweet nothing to Mama: "I'll hound you till you're mine."