Valentine Cards

I want to share with you one of my new favoritest things to do for Valentine's Day.

Let's start off... Valentine's Day is my LEAST favorite day of the year... as a teacher, mom, and wife. haha

(isn't my husband lucky??)

I never really do anything for Valentine's Day. I might take A day to do something... I really only usually do Candy Heart Math and Love, Splat.... because I love Splat the Cat. lol. You can read about those activities HERE. 

But THEN, I saw my friend, Stacey's post on Instagram. She blogs over at Funky Fresh Firsties. Her Valentine Cards were SOOOO cute... so I knew I had to do them. 

The very next day, we started on it.

They painted just the bottom half of a piece of white cardstock paper. I didn't really give them any direction, except to not paint any specific designs, because they were going to get covered up in the end. But I gave them pretty much free reign. 

Then I took their picture and went home and printed them up in color on regular paper.

The original pose from Stacy was blowing a kiss... it was SO cute.

I did have a boy that didn't want to do that, so I let him choose between the blowing the kiss, or making a heart with his hands. 

I used a heart hole puncher, different sizes (5/8", 1", and 2") to punch hearts out of different color paper and scrapbook paper. I got mine from Michaels, but I'm sure you can find them at JoAnns or Hobby Lobby, too. I was bummed that I couldn't find good Valentine Scrapbook paper, but these worked. 

I didn't know what to put in the card, but I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do a "friendly letter" lesson. lol. I wanted them to write what they loved about who they were giving the card to.

I started off by reading "The I LOVE YOU Book" from Todd Parr, one of my favorite author/illustrators.

Then I had them brainstorm ideas. 

We did a quick lesson on Friendly Letters (and by quick, I mean I'm going to definitely need to revisit this and reteach it. ha!)

I feel, as a mom, I would love to get these cards. They are SO super cute.

You can grab the letter templates for free - to use with or without the cards. Click the picture below to grab your letter freebie. 

Happy weekend!!