This February will mark Peyton’s second year participating in a cute Valentine’s Day exchange at her preschool. I still have fond memories of looking forward to my elementary school valentine exchange – filling out cards and giving my best friends and secret crush the best cards in the box.
I love that for now all she looks forward to is receiving valentines from her classmates and the surprises or treats that come with it. Last year, we printed out valentines from The Ever Co. They have the cutest selection of adorable cards that you can purchase and print out yourself. This year, we decided to go the full-on DIY route and get creative with a couple of sayings.
I “designed” the sayings on my computer and had them printed out on white card stock. I glued them to construction paper I bought from Hobby Lobby, punched a hole at the corner and tied some colorful yarn. If you’re interested in printing them, I’d be happy to share the PDF I put together, just leave a comment below!
Here’s a little more detail on how we put both of these DIY valentines together:
You Make My Heart Pop
Our family loves our popcorn, so this one made total sense for Peyton to give to her classmates. I bought little white treat bags from Hobby Lobby and filled them with some fun popcorn that can be made easily at home. I used a big bag of salted popcorn, a small bag of white chocolate chips and Valentine’s Day sprinkles. To make it, I placed the popcorn evenly on wax paper, melted the chocolate in 30-second intervals until it was completely melted and drizzled it generously over the popcorn. I topped all of it with sprinkles and let it harden before placing it in the bags. I attached the valentine with a little clothespin and that’s it!
You Have the Key to My Heart
This was a fun craft and activity to do with Peyton. Luckily, there are only ten other kids in her class, so making all of them won’t take up too much of our time. If your child does have a bigger class, I recommend getting started on this early and do a few a day if you can! To make these, we bought beads from Michaels and Hobby Lobby, key chain hooks and thin twine from Amazon.
I feel like this also served as a learning opportunity for her because we were able to work on bead patterns, sounding out her friends’ names and picking out letters. While she wasn’t able to help thread the beads through the twine because the openings of the beads were so small, I’m sure this is something an older child would be able to help with. To attach the key chain to the valentine, I simply hooked the key chain on to the pieces of yarn.
That’s it! Two really simple and fun valentine cards. If you end up finding inspiration from this post, please tag me. I’d love to see what you come up with!
Marina Makes 