So what if you don’t have a sweetheart to celebrate Valentine’s Day with this year? There’s no need to boycott the holiday, wear all black, and give hostile looks to all of the couples you see on February 14.

Take advantage of all that the holiday of love has to offer by throwing yourself and all your single girlfriends a sweet party. Amy Atlas of Amy Atlas Events in New York City has some great ideas for putting together a celebration your friends won’t soon forget. What will be the focal point of your soiree that sets it apart from all the rest? Why, a dessert bar, of course.

When Amy started her boutique firm in 2008, she relied on the unique and fun qualities of a dessert bar to drive her business. “While desserts are the thing that leave guests with their last impression, no one was doing anything special with them,” she says. “I recognized this and started to create stylized dessert bars at my parties.” 

Although it takes Amy a week and a team of 4-15 people to conceptualize, build, and decorate her one-of-a-kind dessert bars, yours doesn’t have to be as complicated. Here are some quick and easy steps to pulling off a great (and inexpensive) Valentine’s Day dessert bar:

1. Pick a color scheme.
While an obvious color scheme for Valentine’s Day would be pink, red, and white, you can veer from the traditional colors. Amy finds inspiration in wallpaper patterns, party invitations, or even treasured items that have a special meaning to a client. When you choose a color scheme, make sure you like it – you’ll be basing everything else on this first step.

2. Prepare the goodies.
You can make the dessert items yourself, buy them from the supermarket or bakery, ask your guests to bring some, or do a combination of all three. The key is that each dessert should relate to your theme and reflect your color scheme. For your V-Day bash, Amy suggests mini pink and red cupcakes, pink heart-shaped cookies (this Wilton Red Metal Heart Cookie Cutter from amazon.com, $10.44, will come in handy), pink and red truffles, fluffy strawberry marshmallows, and pink and red candy. The benefit of making items yourself, of course, is that you can decide how cute, detailed, and impressive each dessert will be.