9 Affordable V-Day Gifts
If you haven’t figured out what to do for your special someone this Valentine’s Day, you’d better hurry up. In the past, you might have opted for jewelry or an extravagant night on the town, but with this economy, you might need some cheaper or free options. Chances are, you already have the tools to make a great, thoughtful gift at your disposal. We’ve assembled nine ideas that let you make your own personalized gifts using your camera, iPod, and other gadgets so you don’t have to break your bank to melt your loved one’s heart. Now read through our list and get moving, because Saturday will be here before you know it.
Make a video
There’s nothing as sure to elicit coos of contented nostalgia as a personalized video and the tools to make on have never been more accessible. If you’ve got a Mac, iMovie is a superb option, and on a Windows PC, we love a dead-easy program called Loiloscope — it lets you drag and drop individual clips to its “infinite desktop” as you would pieces of film (download the lite version for free to see for yourselves).
If you would rather do everything online — perhaps you’re doing some last-minute editing at work, or would rather keep things hidden away and off the home computer — that’s an option as well: JayCut allows you to easily upload, edit, and share your movies on the Web — no software download or installation necessary!
So get together your most meaningful photos, videos (on whatever device you’ve got, from webcams to digital cameras), and songs, and get your auteur on. Remember to mix various types of media: There’s no reason not to mix video, photos, and songs that have special meaning to both of you. And remember: Tell a story with your video, even if it’s simply about how much you looooove that special someone.
Note: If any of your videos are of the “sexy” and/or “naked” variety, we suggest taking the production offline — and preferably onto a personalized DVD. You can always make them private and/or password protected, but better safe than sorry when it comes to sex tape
Make a mix
Just because you’re not in high school anymore doesn’t mean you’re too old for the illustrious mixtape. Of course, unless your mate has a cassette fetish, “tape” is no longer the medium of choice; instead, we’d suggest making a digi-mix. Put together your own personalized mix of MP3s, stick them onto a flash drive or CD, and voila: instant gift. We’d suggest creating custom cover art — again, working with mixed media like photos and your own artwork, as well as a carefully chosen typeface. After creating your 355 x 355 pixel work of art, go into iTunes, hit Command or CTRL + “i” on the tracks you want the album art to appear on, drag an image to the blank Album Art window, make sure the box is ticked next to Album Art and press OK. Now you’re good to go.
Another option, inspired by Academy Award nominated film ‘The Reader,’ is to record yourself reading an entire book, either with your computer’s built-in mic or a cheap USB mic you find online. (If you have no idea what she’d like to hear, might we suggest ‘The Reader?’) Import the file into iTunes, and then convert it to an MP3, and finally burn it to a CD, slap it onto one of those many thumb drives you’ve got laying around, or put it directly onto her iPod. That’s gold, folks! 
Send a personalized e-card
If you’re not familiar with this God among men (of e-cards, that is), then you should be: JibJab is a Web site that allows you to insert yourself and your loved ones into an assortment of pre-made animations, customize them with your own images and music, and then mail the results to a friend. The site has a special section of Valentines-related templates (“I Love You With Nauseating Enthusiasm” and “Striptease” are two excellent options), and you can even make it now and have the cards automatically delivered to your baby on February 14. JibJab even has some special Anti-Valentine’s options, if you’re with the type of man or woman who feels above this Hallmar k holiday.
iPhone Apps
Assuming your significant other has an iPhone that he or she loves, nothing says “I love you” like a great new iPhone App — since, you know, it will reside in their pocket at all times. We’re big fans of QuadCamera, which lets users take “4-up”-style photo booth shots, Fieldrunners, the best game on the iPhone to date, and the brilliant Ocarina, which turns your iPhone into a magical musical instrument. If you think your baby would want something cute rather than practical or awesome, the App Store (accessible from iTunes or your iPhone) has put up its own section of Valentine’s-related apps, which include such gems as iFlirt, Valentine RADIO, and other types of assorted cheese
Make a personalized ringtone
Yeah, you can buy ringtones online, but they might be the single biggest rip-off in all the world of music (and all the world, for that matter). Perhaps there’s a song that your special someone will forever associate with you, so why not seal the deal by making one of these memorable songs his or her ringtone?
The process is slightly different depending on the phone you’re making it for and the computer you’re making it on. Apple lets you do it for the iPhone with its own Garage Band software, and for virtually any other phone you can use the free Mac/PC audio editor Audacity. These two links (Mac, PC) should have you covered, provided your phone is capable of playing MP3s as ringtones, of course.
Make a photobook
Online photo services like Shutterfly, Snapfish, Apple, Picasa, and Flickr not only let you organize, edit, and share your photos online, they also let you have physical, glossy, professional-looking albums printed and mailed to your door. These generally start around five bucks and range as high as $40 for a nice hardcover album, and are available in an array of shapes and sizes (PhotoJojo’s got an assortment of cool arty frames and photo hangers if you’d like the results to be a bit more hand-crafted). If that’s more than the zero dollars you were planning on spending this V-day, consider making an online photo album on one of the above services A variety of tagged, captioned, and color-corrected photos really says, “I care enough to spend the time it takes to do this. For you.” Our favorite is still Flickr, but any of those listed will do the job well
Will Game 4 Love
Nothing brings two souls together like defending the kingdom from a horde of evildoers. Downloadable games are a cheap, fun, and often gender-neutral alternative to the big-budget first-person shooters that generally hog time on the television set. Those with Xbox 360s should check out Braid, a tale of love and forgiveness in the form of a puzzle-oriented, side-scrolling action game in which you can rewind time. Puzzles are best solved by two heads rather than one, and the whole tone of the experience is tender, idiosyncratic, and evocative in a way that puts romantic comedies starring Richard Gere or Hugh Grant to shame. Castle Crashers is a more typical style of game — it’s a side-scrolling hack’n’slash — but it’s ridiculously fun in cooperative mode, and a great way to bond with your loved one for an evening or three. Each game will put you back less than $15. Viva la sofa!
Have Soldering Iron, Will Travel (How to Make a DIY LED Heart)
If you’re looking for a gift with real soul, a mechanical heart may be just the (unlikely) ticket. This touch-activated, DIY Electric Pulsating Heart is a winner in any geek’s book; it’s a bit involved, but the folks at DIY Life have broken things down into a handy step-by-step guide. The parts can be obtained for a grand total of less than five bucks, and while it will certainly require a fair share of blood, sweat, and tears (and a soldering iron, natch), it’s the kind of gift that will be kept around for many, many years to come (and the battery is replaceable, meaning it could theoretically last a lifetime!). If you’re looking for an alternative, MAKE magazine has some great instructions for making your own Valentine’s Day LED displays and battery-controlled Open Heart Brooches. 
Man (or Woman) About Town (How to Make GPS Romantic)
You may not be familiar with the word “geocaching,” but if you really want to bust out your inner tech-romantic, here’s your chance. Essentially, geocaching involves an outdoor treasure hunt in which the participants use a GPS device to locate hidden stashes of objects.
Apply this to Valentine’s Day, and you’ve got yourself a surefire hit: Pick a series of locations (restaurants, parks, etc.) that you want to guide your partner to, plug them into their GPS-enabled phone, navigator, what-have-you (or even better, give them latitude and longitude coordinates), and send them on their way to find all of your secret destinations and gifts therein. It might be a flower shop where they ask at the counter for a gift in their name, a bakery with a personalized piece of their favorite red velvet cake on hold just for them, or the park you guys walked to on your first date.
We’d recommend the final destination being one at which you yourself are waiting to meet them for a meal under the stars, ideally involving men playing violins. Or hey, it can even be your kitchen with takeout and involve precisely zero violins — if you’ve gone to this much trouble, you’ve already done your job.
