valentine’s cards

we’ve had a really fun time this week creating our valentines and making some special treats. both of the crazies are at their class v-day parties as we speak, and the bug was so excited this morning walking into church, holding her bag of valentines, and saying, “dees mawshmallows are for my fwiends.”

i adapted an idea i found here: http://brownpaper–packages.blogspot.com/2010/01/clothespin-valentines.html

and created these:

i’m pretty sure you can figure out how to do it just by looking at the above picture, but i did take some pics along the way, and personally, i’m a huge fan of seeing the steps, so here goes:

gather all your supplies:

the valentine cards, mini ziplocs (found at joann’s in the jewelry and bead section), tiny clothespins (also found at joann’s…I bought the smallest ones they had), and your candy of choice…we used skittles for the kindergardeners and pink heart shaped marshmallows for the 2 year olds!

i created the actual valentine with a drawing program i have on my computer. you could use photoshop, corral draw, etc…probably even microsoft word…but it was fairly easy, and you can personalize however you’d like. you could even do them by hand and make colored copies. but since i had created them on the computer, i just printed them onto white cardstock…

and cut them out with my paper cutter (actually my dad’s paper cutter, that has lived at my house for the last couple of years, because i love it so much and use it all the time! thanks dad!)

fill all your mini ziplocs with the candy.

now create an assembly line and go to work!

personalize your cards…the boy worked hard to use his best handwriting (not one of his strengths!) to write his friends’ names.

clip them onto the card with the tiny clothespins…and you’re done!

i made a different version that was a bit girlier for the bug to hand out.

be back later with our favorite valentine’s cookie recipe that we made yesterday. but i’m off now to watch Canaan in a special valentine’s day performance for the senior citizens of our town at the community center…how cute is that??