the year of the handmade valentines

Nearly every Christmas the kids and I work together to make the Christmas cards that we send to family & friends.  It's a huge undertaking, but it's always fun to work with them and let them get creative.  And each year we have a craft day as a family and make each other valentines.  But for some reason I've always bought the valentines for their classmates at the store.  Until this year.  A few weeks ago they asked me if we could make our own Valenintes to give to their school friends, and so we did.  Thank goodness for Pinterest and all of the cool ideas floating around out there on the interwebz.  Ella chose a valentine to make in which she had to sew, and she loved it.  The boys picked a monster valentine, which forced Mama to buy a new cricut cartridge (no complaints, I love it!).  I thought that making 60+ valentines was going to be a royal pain, but it ended up being fun.  The kids did much of the work themselves, and were so happy to be creating.  I think that perhaps we will make our valentines every year now.  (Hold me to that next year!)

oodles of monsters

working on valentines is a great opportunity for handwriting practice!

the outside of the monster valentine

the inside of the monster valentine

ella's sweetheart valentines