It started out innocently enough. My oldest child’s first school Valentine’s Day party is next week (her daycare didn’t do them) and I’m a slightly crafty mom. So I did what any parent would do. I turned to the internet. I know that 87% of kids with mom’s online did the photo lollipop last year. I wanted something cute but candy free (Matilda does not tolerate artificial dyes well), so I turned to Pinterest*. I searched “valentine” and from the hundreds of returns I narrowed it down to three:

Valentine, I’ve got my eye on you! from The Brassy Apple. A cute variation on the theme of the lollipop valentine. I found some awesome magnifying glasses on Amazon for 3 cents each. I nearly bought 25… then I saw that shipping was $5 each.

Arrrgh you ready for Valentine’s Day? from Mer Mag. I love, love, love sewing on paper and these seemed so easy and I had everything on hand to make them. I was kind of hoping Matilda would pick this one. (note – there are other super-cute valentine ideas on this site – look around!)

I’m bubbling with excitement… from Simply Modern Mom. Cute, simple, no candy. I searched around and found a pack of 36 bubble wands for $9. Seemed pretty easy and not terribly expensive.

I showed the options to Matilda and she picked the bubbles. The first thing I did was order the bubbles, a tiny hole punch, some glue dots and some more bakers twine (I thought I had enough but I didn’t). When they arrived I quickly made a prototype. Then those supplies have sat idly on the dining room table for a month.

This week I finally had the PDF printed, Matilda chose to have it done on lavender card stock. I had 30 printed so I could have extras if needed. Having them color printed and cut cost $6. Not being able to get the idea of sewing on paper out of my head, I decided that the cards needed some embellishment to make up for the plain white bubble wands. I had found some cute felt-heart ribbon in the Target $1 bins so I decided to sew a strip of hearts along the bottom of the card.

So, the cute “cheap” DIY valentines cost $37. Oops. But I do have a dozen bubble wands left over and of course I’ll use the twine and hole punch again. And Matilda loves her valentines so that’s all that really matters.

She signed them on the back and added some puffy heart stickers I had in the art cupboard

Are you a box-of-cards valentine buyer, or a crafter cutting out hearts and doilies for your cards?

 

*Note: I do not have a Pinterest account, and I never will. I know it would be too much of a time suck. I do, however, stalk some of my friend’s boards for ideas and even for gift suggestions for the board owner. And it’s a good place to search when looking for crafty ideas.