Personalised Valentine's Gifts for Couples: Six Prints That Last

Valentine's shopping tends to go one of two ways. Either you buy something that has been eaten by the Sunday, or something that is still on the wall in ten years. We are biased, because the second kind is what we make.

Everything below is printed, foiled and framed by hand in Hessle, and built around your names, your dates and your places. Six ideas from the Valentine's Day collection, with the real prices and what we need you to send us.

1. A pair of hands with your names drawn into them, from £10

The couple hand prints are our quietest design and probably our most given. One hand holding another, drawn as a single line, with your two names written into the artwork and a short line of wording along the bottom. Nothing shouts. It works over a bed, in a hallway, or leaning on a shelf.

There are two versions. The Personalised I Love You Couple Hand Print carries the words as part of the design, and the plainer Personalised Couple Hand Print leaves the wording entirely to you. Both start at £10 for an A5 print on its own, and both come framed from £15.

Everything goes in the one personalisation box: the names, plus the wording you want along the bottom. An anniversary date works. So does the thing one of you always says.

2. Holding hands in real foil, from £14

The Custom Holding Hands Couple Foil Print is the same idea with the volume turned up. Two hands intertwined, your names joined by a heart underneath, and a line of your own words below that. The names and the heart are pressed in real foil, so they shift as you walk past a window rather than sitting flat like ink.

You pick the card colour first, white, black or navy, then the foil, from metallics, glitters and holographics. The product page carries a warning worth repeating: a dark foil on a black card can disappear. If you want black card, pick something bright to go on it.

Foil prints come in A5 and A4 only. A5 is £14 as a print, £18 framed in black or white and £19 in grey. A4 is £18 as a print and £26 framed, £27 in grey, with a mount adding £3. If you want to know why foil costs more than ink, we wrote about how the foiling actually works.

3. Your whole story on one timeline, £10

The Our Love Story So Far print is a list, and that is the point of it. You send us each moment that mattered with the year alongside it, and we lay them out as a timeline. The first date. The flat with the terrible boiler. The dog. The wedding. The baby.

There is no limit on how many you send, and no need to fret over the wording, because we lay it out and send you a proof before anything is printed. If a line reads badly, you tell us and we change it.

A5 print only is £10, A5 framed is £15, and it goes up to A3 framed at £28, which is the size to pick if the list is a long one.

4. Two places on one map, £10

If you met in different places, or one of you moved for the other, the Two Location Love Map Print is the one. You choose two countries, we draw both, and your names and a date sit underneath. It is £10 for A5 print only and £15 framed, on the same size ladder as the hand prints.

5. Two initials, and nothing else, from £10

Not everybody wants a print that explains itself. The Personalised Name and Initial Print is the restrained option: a name set against a large initial, clean enough to hang in a room that is not decorated around it. A5 print only is £10, A5 framed is £14 in black or white and £15 in grey, and A4 print only is the cheapest framed-size step at £13.

It also works as a pair, one each, hung side by side.

6. The song that was playing

If there is a song rather than a place or a date, a foiled lyric print does the job better than anything above. We have written that one up already, Spotify code included, in our guide to personalised song lyric prints. The rest of the foiled range sits in Foiled Art.

Sizes, frames and the parts we should say out loud

The same rules apply across the printed range:

• Sizes are A5, A4 and A3, apart from the foil prints, which stop at A4.

• Frames are solid wood, made in the UK, in black, white or grey only. No oak, no gold, and we would rather say so here.

• The front of every frame is 1.2mm acrylic, not glass. It looks the same and it does not shatter, which matters near a cot or a stair wall.

• A mount is an optional extra on A4 and A3, usually £2 on the printed range and £3 on the foil prints.

• Personalised items cannot be returned because you changed your mind. That is the trade for having your names on it, and it is exactly why we send a proof first.

How these get made

Duffy's Creations is Lee and Sam, working from home in Hessle, HU13. Nothing is held in stock and nothing is drop-shipped. We set your wording into the design, send you a proof, and only print once you have said yes. If a name has an unusual spelling, type it in the personalisation box exactly as you want it and we will follow it.

Foiled pieces take longer than printed ones, because the foil is pressed after the design is set. We will not quote a turnaround here, but if you are buying for the 14th, the first week of February is comfortable and the second week is a gamble.

Where to start

If you know the person and not the print, browse the whole Valentine's Day collection first. If you are shopping by recipient, Gifts for Her and Gifts for Him cover most of it, and if the occasion is really an engagement or an anniversary rather than Valentine's, our wedding and anniversary prints are the better shelf to look at.

And if you have an idea that is not on the site, email us. Most of what we sell started as somebody asking for a slightly different version of something else.