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Simple Handmade Valentine's Day Cards
Published 01.21.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (10)
By Ellen Luckett Baker
Help your children make handmade cards this year with these easy assembly-line heart crafts. Even as someone who loves to make crafts with my children, I find Valentine's Day cards to be a chore. We always start with grand plans, but after my kids have made about 10 cards they lose interest, even when we start well before Valentine's Day. So I was looking for ideas that truly are easy but will make you feel good about creating handmade cards.
If you're little one is too young to sign her name, try using letter stamps or print her name on stickers and let her put them on the cards. If she can sign her name, but it's just too tedious for her to sign 20 cards, try making a custom styrofoam stamp like I did here. I know, you're re-thinking that long name now, aren't you?
All of these heart crafts can be made with recycled materials, so open up the recycling bin and start crafting!
Pencil with Felt Heart: Like to sew? Cut out two hearts from felt and sew them together with an opening for the pencil top. Let your kids place the hearts on the pencils and glue on a printed banner.
Accordion Paper Hearts: Simply fold your paper accordion-style five times and cut a half heart shape to reveal three hearts inside. Or try the opposite and make hearts like you would make paper dolls.
Cereal Box Bookmarks: Upcycle your cereal boxes to make these easy bookmarks. Here we used a rounded corner punch and a heart punch, then added some twine. You could use recycled materials for the hearts as well, making it a fully upcycled project.
Heart Potato Stamps: Cut a potato in the shape of a heart and stamp away. We used washable tempera paint on white card stock.
Heart Stick Puppet: With some paper, glue and a popsicle stick, you can make this sweet little heart puppet. We used the heart punch and added a face with pen. You could also add pipe cleaners for arms.
Pop-up Heart Card: My six-year-old enjoyed making these last year. We watched this video to learn how to make them, but we used regular paper as it is easier for children to fold than card stock. Here we added an extra red heart made with a paper punch to give some color to the plain white background.
Woven Heart Envelope: This one is a little more difficult, so I'd recommend it for third grade and up, but it has great results. The woven heart opens, so you can slip a note inside or add a hanger and make it into a basket for a small treat. You can find a nice tutorial with photos here. Just remember that you aren't really weaving, but rather making a woven pattern by slipping the strips into the strips of the other color.
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About this column
This is a year-round Holiday column. Kids love Holidays. As parents we have come to appreciate how Holidays seem to help structure our lives. Plus, any excuse to have fun sounds good to us!
We'll admit it, now that we're parents, we secretly look for Holidays to celebrate and between National, Secular, Unofficial and Bizarre Holidays, we think there are enough days out there to keep us inspired every week.
This column will be a place where you can get inspiration for how to enjoy time with your kids. Crafting projects and ideas will be posted on Thursdays by our brilliant contributors (see below). Other fun ideas will be posted here throughout the week as the inspiration hits us!
About our Craft Contributors
Ellen Luckett Baker is the author of the long thread, a blog about handmade goods. She has always enjoyed making things, but the flexibility of staying at home with her two daughters along with the creative inspiration they provide has led her to craft on a daily basis. Combining her love of graphic design and sewing, she has created an Etsy shop selling machine embroidery designs and sewing patterns.
Ellen lives in Atlanta with her husband and two young daughters. She holds a B.A. in Art History and a Master's of Public Administration with a focus in Non-Profit Management.
Cindy Hopper was fortunate to be raised in a family who appreciated the arts. This background led to a Bachelor's Degree in Art Education. With a keen eye for design and color, Cindy has continued her love of art and is now passing her creative skills on to her three children. Cindy's family and friends are the beneficiaries of her passion for fun and meaningful creative projects. Cindy's personal blog, Skip to My Lou, has taken her love of a project to new levels. Postings keep the family busy -– from testing new recipes for holiday treats to designing and building floats for a neighborhood parade to making fabric rolls to hold crayons to creating themed parties. Cindy seems to have an unending supply of ideas for gifts, parties and rainy days.
Brenda Ponnay is a stealthy secret agent who juggles parenthood to her adorable daughter by day and freelance graphic design by night. Whether it's painting, baking, drawing, making castles out of card board boxes or just doing the laundry with flair, Brenda Ponnay has finally discovered (at the ripe old age of thirty-six) that what really makes her happy is being creative every single day.
Brenda lives in Southern California with her husband, daughter, three cats and thirty-seven pet birds. You can read about all her crazy adventures on her personal blog: Secret Agent Josephine.
Disclaimer
This column is only for entertainment purposes. Any recommendations or information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for advice by a trained professional. For a full statement of our site policies, please click here.
Comments (10):
Wikki Stix – Crafts & Educational Tools for Kids said:
Thanks for the useful and informative post. I look forward to more in the future.
Posted on January 21, 2010 11:32
Katie said:
These are adorable and look so easy to do! Thanks for the ideas!
Posted on January 21, 2010 13:44
Annette W said:
Very clever! THank you.
Posted on January 21, 2010 14:26
liz said:
love this, esp the potato stamp!
Posted on January 21, 2010 21:31
Megan said:
These are great ideas! I wish I had them when I was teaching. I love the heart potato stamp.
Posted on January 21, 2010 22:46
Ashley, with CWDkids said:
Thank you for the great ideas! I can't wait to show them to my kids.
Have a great weekend!
Ashley, with CWDkids
www.kidbits.cwdkids.com
Posted on January 22, 2010 07:48
Amy L. said:
Thank you SO MUCH for this post! I just whipped up a dozen of the stick puppets with my almost 5 year-old, (yes, that was me at the craft store when they opened this morning!) and we had a blast. He was very excited about using the paper punch himself, and once he had a stack of hearts, he drew all the smiley faces, as we talked about who each one was for. This seemed to help keep him focused, and I noticed that he was smiling too as we worked together. He can get frustrated easily, and tends to be hard on himself when he doesn't get it "just right" the first time, but he quickly saw that it was just a piece of paper, and that we could easily make many more to replace the ones he "messed up." It really took the pressure off. Still, each one is unique, and clearly made by him. I can't tell you how grateful I am for this idea! Highly recommended for a rainy day.
Posted on January 24, 2010 15:34
sunnymama said:
I love how these cards are so simple but pretty too! I've linked to this post here:
http://sunnydaytodaymama.blogspot.com/2010/02/50-inspiring-links-love-creativity-and_08.html
Posted on February 9, 2010 06:52
Jen said:
Thank you! It's so nice to find crafts that are cute, simple and different!
Posted on February 9, 2010 16:02
Jen said:
I love how simple and beautiful these are! My son and I also made a Valentine that was easy to do and fun for him too.
http://jenparkerphotography.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/i-heart-valentines-day/
Posted on February 11, 2010 02:58