This Valentine's Day the daughter and I decided to use some of our existing craft stash to make her school Valentine party cards, instead of buying the typical cards that kids just toss in the trash. We found some spare pieces of cardstock, loose pom poms and various google eyes. So, we made "love bugs". She wanted them to be removable so the kids could play with them.
We wrote up the poem in the car on our way home one day. And, with a little help from Adobe Illustrator's stock brush borders and a nice font called "Algerian", we designed a simple card the night before her party.
After printing the cards she colored and cut them out herself. Instead of trying to cut the circle for the bugs to fit in with scissors, I showed her how to punch out most of the circle with a regular hole punch. It took us three well aimed punches to remove enough of the circle. She signed the backs to pass them out. I put another small circle at the center top of the heart to be hole punched for a possible ribbon to be strung through. But we didn't end up using it.
Feel free to use this card for your own personal St. Valentine's Day cards perhaps for next year. A pdf of a 9 card 8.5x11" layout is available here.
Those are SO cute, did her classmates love them?
ReplyDeleteHer 2nd grade class really liked them. She said most pulled the google-eyed pom pom out right away to pet, balance on their pencils, and play catch with. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure anything different from the norm would get noticed. We wanted something to give out besides candy. She always comes home from these school parties hopped-up on sugar with a stash that lasts her weeks. :o
Mieljolie
So clever!!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! Love it! Those are really cute!!
ReplyDeleteJamie
Thanks guys! The daughter came up with most of the idea. I mainly just made suggestions and helped her see it through. :)
ReplyDeleteShe was showing us the cards she received, and we found that well over half that were passed out were from the same card company. Since when did Valentine's Day become an enterprise to keep one company going?!
Mieljolie
These are adorable!
ReplyDeleteI love these! We are going to make larger love bugs at my son's Kindergarten Valentine's Day party for the kids to take home to their parents and I thought they could make these cards to go with their love bugs. When I printed them off, all 9 printed vertically on just half of an 8.5x11 paper. Is there a way to get them to print off so they are larger? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Anon. Your party sounds fun!
ReplyDeletePrinting options really depend a lot on your software and printer's driver setting. But, try turning it to landscape/portrait, whichever is opposite of what it was. If you can't get it right, try using the single image jpeg on the post. Some printing software will let you choose how large and how many to a page to print. Let me know if you need a larger version.
Mieljolie