Adeline's dress: Target// Elias's shirt: Janie and Jack (Both from 2012 clearance – the only way to shop!)
Happy Valentine's Day!! We had so much fun making these DIY Valentines this year. Both were inspired by Pinterest, with a little Mom Creative twist. 🙂
Of course, I didn't get started on these until this week. But I never let a little time crunch stop me from getting crafty.
Jedi Valentine's Cards with Glow Sticks
Elias loves Star Wars, so Monday morning (yes, before school/work!) we dressed up in his Jedi costume and took pictures with his light saber. I then added the words “May the Force be With You this Valentine's Day! Love, Jedi Elias” to our favorite picture and uploaded it to Walgreens to be developed. You can easily add words to any photo using a site like PicMonkey or Canva. Be sure when you take your photo that you leave enough room for the words!
I then used a blade to cut a slit in each picture and slipped a light saber in each Valentine. (You can find glow bracelets in packs of five at The Dollar Store or buy a 100 pack for $6.99 on Amazon.)
Some tacky tape on the front of the picture + scotch tape on the back ensured that the bracelet wasn't going to go anywhere.
Elias helped by putting the tacky tape on each picture. He also was thrilled whenever I would accidentally “pop” one of the bracelets and make it light up because that meant he could have it. He happily went to bed with three glowing bracelets on his wrist.
Butterfly Snack Valentine's Cards
For Adeline, I ran out of time and didn't do a cute toddler wearing red picture. So I made do with a cute photo I took a couple weeks ago, cropped it to 4×3 and added the words “You give me butterflies! Happy Valentine's Day! Love, Adeline”. By cropping it to 4×3, I was able to get two on a 4×6 template for easy developing at Walgreens.
Last night, Elias and I made a special treat – Toddler Trail Mix (Strawberry Frosted Mini Wheats, Teddy Grahams, Frosted Cheerios and Yogurt Covered Raisins) for Adeline's friends. We packaged the mix in pink ziplocks (found at Target) and used clothes pins to make the packages looks like butterflies.
Hand-drawn eyes and smiley faces + pipe cleaner antennas completed the butterflies.
Adeline and Elias were sure to help me taste test the trail mix and were big fans of it. (Frosted cheerios have never been in our house before!) Elias was a big help scooping the trail mix in the ziplocks.
Then, I added the photo to each snack, making the sweetest Valentine treat.
I love how their DIY Valentines turned out!
Today Elias was so excited for his Valentine's party at school. Matthew was going to accompany him since I had another appointment that conflicted. I did get lots of hugs and kisses before work though.
Did you make DIY Valentine's this year or keep things simple with store bought?
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Those are absolutely adorable valentine’s treats! (The adorable smiling faces of your children shining up from them make them truly special!)
These are just so darling! I got lazy this year and just brought Isaiah to Target to let him pick out whatever box of character Valentine’s he wanted. These are just so wonderful though!
These are so cute! We do store bought every year for the kids’ classmates, but we did do homemade ones for the teachers this year.
For the last two years, we have melted broken crayons into hearts. So each kid gets one multi-colored heart shaped crayon. Works pretty well, and is pretty cheap after the initial heart mold investment ($2-3 at Target) and recycles all those crayon bits that would normally get trashed throughout the year.
I have always wanted to make these!
We have done the same thing for the past 2 years and the kids love giving them out (well exc. my 20 month old!). Super easy – just remember not to throw away all those broken crayons for a few months & collect them. I am overwhelmed by the amount of bags of candy & treats they get for Valentines Day – its become bigger than Halloween so I try not to add to the sugar level 🙂 Yours were really cute!
Such sweet pictures of you and your kiddos!! Love the Valentine’s they gave out. We had a little party, but didn’t give out anything this year.
Adorable!!! No kids yet for us, so no Valentines to make. I did surprise the hubs with a card (store bought.) And he surprised me with tickets to see P!NK in Nashville 🙂
The pictures of you and your little ones are SO cute!!! Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! As far as our Valentine’s……for my son’s preschool class, we went with store bought. I had dreams of making perfect homemade Valentines but, I’m in my last month of pregnancy, I have a 2 year old and a 4 year old and time just ran out.
TOTALLY understandable. Good luck with the end of your pregnancy.
What an unbelievably cute idea those Star wars cards were!! I wish my boys were that young again to make those, but I loved them! But I have a new niece I can always use the butterfly idea with!! And I will try that trail mix for a shower or something because that looked really good. Anyway, thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much. I was so excited about the Star Wars cards. 🙂
hey Jessica, your kids are very lucky to have a creative mum like you:)
your images and words really gave me inspiration and motivation to put a bit more effort into everyday life:)
Love both of the cards and I bet their friends loved them too!
You are so creative!! Those star wars cards are super! My boys are too old now but maybe for a nephew. And I like the make our own trail mix idea!