our 2013 valentines

this year’s valentines were brought to you by the amazing resource known as pinterest.

yesterday was the girls’ preschool valentine’s party and they were beyond excited to pass out their creations and to celebrate with their classmates.  i was in charge of a craft for the party and after just spending an hour and a half in the classroom, i was wiped.  granted, i did participate in the dress-up relay race but i’m doubting it was because of that.

for my craft, i decided on letting the kids make a valentine for someone special featuring a photo of themselves.  i had pinned this photo a few weeks ago and thought it was perfect for this age group.  even the boys loved participating!  i purchased absolutely nothing and gathered my supplies at 11:30 the night before.  super easy.  i selected 12 sheets of paper from my BasicGrey true love 6×6 paper pad and folded them in half.  this was the perfect size to put my instax photos of each child.  the inside of the card was left blank for the students to write their message or draw a photo. (leighton chose to draw a three-armed octopus inside of her card.  i’m at a loss on that one.)  i also cut out a handful of red construction paper hearts.

before the party started, i taped my hearts to the wall and set out the supplies.  one by one, i had each student hold out their hands and look to the side as they pretended to blow.  (they did think i was crazy.  no doubt about it.)  as soon as the photo came out of the camera, i had them select a card and adhered the developing photo to the front.  they LOVED watching themselves appear in the photo!  i also had them select one bottle cap sticker and one wax seal to decorate their card – perfect choices as each embellishment has 12 to a package.  the exact number of cards i needed to create!

i definitely would do this project again as it was super easy to put together and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.  perfect for this age group!

these were camryn’s valentine’s.  total cost = $3.97 for a package of 24 mini bottles of bubbles which i old used half of them.  so technically, total cost was less than $2.  i decorated the bottle of bubbles by wrapping it in heart and cloud washi tape from freckled fawn which i already had in my stash.  the bubbles that i bought had four colors of bottles and i used red and blue.  i thought the tape helped everything coordinate a bit more.  i found a printable from simply modern mom that i liked but as i was using a different type of bubble, it wasn’t going to work.  with a bit of copy and paste and resizing, i came up with a tag design that i could easily tie to the bottle of bubbles.  she wrote her name on the back and we were good to go.

and then there’s leighton’s valentines.  loved them, although they were difficult to photograph after packaging them.  i saw this idea on pinterest and when i noticed it included a free printable for jar design, i was sold.  we refer to leighton as ladybug and she even has a couple of plastic bugs  and a bug jar she enjoys playing with so i knew she’d enjoy them.  these valentine’s also cost me around $3 for the bugs.  i also bought the plastic bags but used less than half the package as i know i’ll have reason to use them again in the near future.

after handcutting the jars, leighton wrote her name on the back of each and then we adhered the bugs on the front.  to make them a bit girlier, i printed the design on pink cardstock.  each of the jars were slipped into bags and tied with ribbon that i swear i’ve owned for at least 8 years and never used.

wondering how many more times i can get away with making handmade valentines for the girls before they figure out you can purchase store-bought ones at our beloved target?

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so what were your valentines this year – store-bought or handmade?