Valentine's Day Cards & Craft Ideas

What do you do for Valentine's Day?  As "Gifts" is defintely in the top 2 of my "Love Languages", I always hope for a good Valentine's Day.  John & I usually switch off who plans Vday each year.  This year is his year.  It is about 1 week before I am due with our 3rd child.  I am looking forward to seeing what he has in store!
By the way, for some great ideas for keeping a marriage spicy *all year*, I really recommend you follow Married Spice on Twitter!  They also have a Facebook & blog but tweet the most frequent.
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How do you make Vday special for your kids?  The past couple of years, I have made little vday cards and passed them out in the diaper bags of Jesse's friends at church and Abigale's teachers.  We are not old enough for preschool so there is nothing formal as far as Valentine Exchanges.  For some reason, I can't wait for the days that does happen. 

This year, they are both more aware of the "holiday" so we will see how that changes things.  Abigale is also obsessed with bears and the giant bears with velvet hearts are very tempting to buy at the bargain price of $20 this time of year... Does she need it? No. Am I still greatly tempted?  Absolutely.  Jesse has already expressed that he wants to buy one for her.  Love that.  :)

I know I teach classes and create cards for a living but I do love the picture Vday cards and there are so many out there to choose from with specials galore!

Here are a few I found on Tiny Prints

This one would be super cute for Abigale and I love that color/design combo:

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 I love this design and I know Jesse would since he is my Train-Crazy little boy!

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The other option wold be to get a more generic design and use these for giveaway cards for our upcoming birth announcement of the new baby...  Hmm..

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Check out all their Valentine's Greeting Cards!

 For lots of great cards for all occasions, follow Tiny Prints on Twitter and follow Tiny Prints on Facebook They often have specials to take advantage of!

What creative crafts do you have planned for this Happy Heart Day?

Here are a few ideas I am currently working on for Vday:

  

In MOPS, 2 weeks ago we made our version of these Martha Stewart Felt Fortune Cookies. 

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The idea was to leave a note back & forth with their hubbies {naughty or nice} through the month of February.  You could also use them to leave little notes for your kids in their lunch box if you have that age range.  What we did as a quickie tutorial is coming soon.

In 2 weeks, we are making Massage Oil in MOPS.  A friend's husband works at Cracker Barrell and he was nice enough to collect 90+/- of their little {empty} maple syrup bottles for us to fill as our 2/14 Creative Activity.  I hope it goes over well and isn't too messy.  I am creating labels with My Digital Studio that the church print shop will print to make them a little pretty, too.

I also hope they actually use it with their spouse!  

For Abigale's birthday, I made these poms from Martha Stewart.  

It was a lot of time to just throw them away.  I was pleasantly surprised that in February's MS magazine, someone used the poms to make a large heart over their mantle for a party, then left it up all year.  I am not sure I will leave it up much past February, but I was glad to get an idea of how to use those poms a second time.  Pictures of the heart on my entryway to come.

As for kids crafts, I definitely hope I can make these foot & hand prints, either as a card for the grandparents or a wall piece. 

I also hope to make a keepsake item for myself and possibly my mom for Vday or before the new baby comes at least.  Still trying to decide if it would be better to frame them with recent pictures, instead of jewelry.  In my experience, polymer clay is not that sturdy *and* with 3 kiddos, not too sure how that would hang. Maybe 3 tiered?  Hmm..

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Isn't this the greatest little idea and seems easy enough...although all those ideas on Pinterest often do.  hah.

Check out my friend Jennifer's fab little t-shirts she just made for her 2 little girls over at Family Musings!  Perhaps, Abigale might just need one before the month gets started..

As if I have nothing else to do, I am sure I will be gathering other ideas that I may {or may not} actually get accomplished for this little guy arrives on or about Februray 23rd!

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Here are some of the other things I have gathered & pinned for Valentine's Day...more to come, I am sure.

Follow all my boards, if you like. I love the idea sharing!

Follow Tiny Prints boards on Pinterest.com, too, while you are there.

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 I look forward to seeing & hearing about your ideas, too! 

Thanks for stopping by and love someone good this month!

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~For writing part of this blog, I should receive 50 Classroom Valentine’s Day Cards for kids as Tiny Prints way of saying thanks~

Magnetic Chalkboard with Memo Clips ~MOPS Creative Activity

Our MOPS~Mothers of Preschoolers~ group meets every Tuesday during the school year.  We have a "Creative Activity" or craft every other week for the most part.  We average 80-100 women which makes the task slightly difficult of finding & creating a craft for that many people to complete within 15 minutes, at lots of different levels of crafting ability, tons of different tastes, and did I mention on a super tight budget?  What one person, 10 people and 100 can create differ greatly.

But, to say all of that, I am excited to share what we did as our first real creative activity.  

I am giving all the steps in case 1.) You wanted to make more yourselves. Super easy and inexpensive gift for teachers, coworkers, etc. 2.) Other MOPS Creative Activities ladies might want an idea for their group.

So, first, the final product:

And, now, how we got there.

Supplies:

Clothespins

Neodymium Magnets {SUPER Powerful!}

Large Burner Covers

Can Black Matte Spray Paint

Quart Black Chalkboard Paint

Crop-a-Dile to poke the holes and a metal file to file holes

Wide Ribbon

Designer Series Paper

glue

Chalk to season/prime.

200 Clothespins

I decided to glue the magnets on because they were so tiny I feared they would get lost. And they were so strong, if the board was slightly touched, they all snapped together like a mousetrap or domino affect, which Jesse found quite funny!

100 ribbon loops to hang the chalkboards with!

I used 3 kinds, honestly, because I bought the first 2 striped ribbons from Stampin' Up to coordinate with the Designer Series Paper and under estimated the amount I needed. 

I pre-cut, knotted, & sealed the loops with glue. I knew it would take a lot more ribbon if they tied the knot themselves {budget}.  And frustration isn't fun for those that don't like to tie ribbons.  Also, time is always a constraint. 

I cut the paper to be glued onto the clothespins from a retired pack of Designer Series Paper.  It is double sided so there is a choice of designs but they all coordinate along with matching the ribbons.  

3/4" X 2 3/4" strips times 200+.

I packed them in groups of 8 kits for each table to make sure everyone had enough supplies and they are easy to find.  I emptied them into our little black buckets for ease of delivery to each table the morning of MOPS.

I only have 1 Crop-a-Dile, so this is another step in the prep process that had to be done at home.  Since the ribbon I chose was wide, it took 3 holes. Then it left sharp edges, so I filed them with a metal file.

I lined them up in a box and spray painted the sides matte {to match the matte-ness of the chalkboard finish}.  Just turned them 3-4 times to hit all the side.

Ready to roll the chalkboard paint on!

1 coat.

Painting complete.  Now all stacked and ready to take to MOPS. 

The coordinating factor is my fave part of this project.  Oh, and the usefulness.  :) 

I hope the ladies at MOPS @ the Mall enjoy them!

Note: If you desire to know the location these supplies were purchased or you are a MOPS C.A. person and want to know Cost-Per-Person, please message me.  Happy to help!