A Simple Homemade Valentine Card Project
I am not an arts and craft sort of person and am far from Super Mom. Actually, I don’t even try to be Super Mom – being Good Enough Mom is fine with me.
In previous years my daughter and I have gone to the drug store, purchased one of those boxes of character Valentines, made sure we had one for each kid in her class and we were done with it. My daughter always enjoyed this – and especially liked deciding if she would get Princesses or Winnie the Pooh. I remember enjoying going to the store to pick out these boxes when I was a kid – but they weren’t so commercial then. Instead of cartoon characters they had kittens, puppies and hearts. (Back then Happy Meals didn’t have movie tie-ins either).
This year, however, I didn’t want to be lazy and buy a character box and I didn’t really want to support whatever kid’s entertainment was popular this year. And since I actually thought about Valentine’s Day for the kid far enough in advance, I decided we would make homemade Valentines for the kids in her class.
I did a google image search on valentine animal and one of the first results was an elephant valentine that looked easy enough to make even for a artsy dunce like me. Alex and I both love elephants so we were excited about the project.
We had most of the supplies we needed but were low on construction paper. We went for a really silly walk to the drugstore in the pouring rain to get the construction paper and heart shaped lollipops.
Here are the cards that we made:
Supplies
- Construction page – we bought all different colors
- Scissors
- Glue
- Stickers
- Crayons
- Markers
- Bag of heart shaped lollipops
- List of students in class – we use the class picture. I know maybe half of them but there is no way I would remember all of the names.
Like I mentioned, I can’t draw – not even a heart that isn’t lopsided. So, I folded the piece of construction paper in half, drew half hearts in light pencil along the fold, and then cut out the hearts that way. With the rest of the paper, I drew trunk like shapes that sort of looked like the letter J and cut those out too. Each elephant was made with three hearts, 1 for the face and 1 for each ear, and a J trunk.
After I cut out the pieces (which Alex could have done but she wanted me to help), Alex decorated them with stickers and markers. I really liked the way she wrote who it was to on the trunk, and put a heart on each ear and on the tip of the trunk. We then attached a heart shape lollipop to the back of the elephant.
We did half at one time and the other half on another. I only have so much craft patience ;-) But we had fun finding the idea and making them together. And Alex can’t wait to give them to her classmates.
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February 3, 2010 at 6:43 am
Hi Kim – good on you for rejecting “super Mom” as an objective! You’re right, “Good Enough Mom” is great the way it is. This is a very cute project. Your daughter will probably want to pick another animal next year, and voila! you’ve established a tradition that she will enjoy and remember. Love it!
Betsy Wuebker´s last blog ..Laying the Keel
February 3, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Hi Betsy – Thanks! She will want to keep doing these – I’m not sure what animal she will pick next time. Hopefully it won’t be one that’s too hard to make :-)
We still have some lollipops to attach to the final batch but otherwise we’re done.
February 3, 2010 at 11:58 am
These look great. I’m glad you guys had fun making them together. :-)
February 3, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Hi Jim – Thanks! It was mostly fun until we were almost done. She was a little tired of it and so was I – she was trying to get me to do all the work. ;-) It’s a good thing we did them in two batches – it wouldn’t have worked to do them all at one time.
February 3, 2010 at 4:45 pm
These are so cute! I always prefer homemade cards over store bought ones.
February 3, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Hi Vered – Me too! Buying the boxed ones has been a mix of laziness, not thinking about the holiday ahead of time, and nostalgia.
February 4, 2010 at 12:13 pm
You’re better then I, that’s for sure. I can’t even color in the lines!
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Welcome Aboard Part 2! All The Info You’ve Been Waiting For…
February 4, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Hi Dennis – LOL – I know how to cut out hearts but my coloring skills are pretty bad too.
February 6, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Kim,
What a great idea. Maddy has a friend staying over tonight and I
m getting together the materials for them to wow everyone with their elephantines!
Great!
George
George Angus´s last blog ..What I Learned From Children
February 7, 2010 at 8:09 am
Hi George – That’s wonderful! I hope they had fun :-)