Homemade Valentines

Last year The Good Daughter was only 7 1/2 months old on Valentine's Day. I bought a small box of cartoon cards and gave them to her daycare friends, congratulating myself for remembering to buy some. Then I picked her up from daycare and found 5 handmade and very cute valentines for her. I felt so inadequate.

So this year there was a tiny voice in the back of my head at the end of January saying I should find something cute to make for V-Day. Then I saw this idea in Parenting magazine and it was cute and easy and I already had all the materials to make them.

The idea is to take a wooden block with raised letters, put a piece of paper over it and color the image. The problem I found was the entire block was too big for the front of the card, so I just colored the letter and not the surrounding border.


For the boys, I used green card stock and bold colors. For the girls I used either purple or pink card stock and pastel colors. As you can see, I didn't line up the letters perfectly. Just pretend I did that on purpose to give it a more hand-made look.

To make these:
~You'll Need: card stock, alphabet blocks with carved letters, craft glue stick and colored pencils

~Arrange alphabet blocks letter side up to spell out desired word or phrase. Fold card stock in half lengthwise and then half again, this time widthwise, to create a card. Open the card and position its lower right flap on the block arrangement. Rub a colored pencil over the blocks until the impression appears. Or, you can color each letter singularly like I did, to achieve my uneven look. Turn the card over and cover the entire surface in craft glue. Fold the card in half, smooth out any lumps and allow to dry. This just holds the paper together. I could have just cut one piece of card stock in two and not messed with the glue but I'm not smart enough to figure that out until I was through.
My next project was creating this treat box from Martha Stewart. I will let her explain how you do that.

It was an easy project and it only took me about 15 minutes to make this at the most. You can see I didn't put quiet enough tape on the right corner, but it still looked good. I also used two pieces of card stock and it was a little thick, so when I folded the paper, some of it sort of cracked. Also the ribbon I used was too thick and I really had to pull it through the hole. These are all rookie crafting mistakes I am sure.

I can't wait for next year.