Last February, while on maternity leave, my son Mav and I made these really cute homemade valentines that had a hot cocoa packet, red paper cup, and some marshmallows and chocolate kisses in a baggie in the cup. The front had a heart that said ” A cup full of love” or “You warm me up inside”. I have to admit, they turned out really good, and Maverick enjoyed “making” them.This year, we started early, and found some more neat homemade valentine ideas (all these are from Family Fun Magazine). One thing I did not think of though, is the fact that we had to make about 4x as many as last year (oh yeah, we have another kid in the mix, Brody who is 1) and not only do we need Valentines for daycare, but now Mav’s preschool too. OK, we can handle that.

I like variety. And there are 2 kids, so we need at least two kinds of valentines right? Here is what we did: 

1) The Bag of Bear Hugs: We used teddy grahams and gummy bears in a little plastic baggy, with a note tied on with a ribbon with sayings like “Bag of bear hugs” and “Cubs and Kisses”. Probably has the best “treats” and Maverick liked filling the bags (he is 3 and a half). Don’t mix the gummies and teddy grahams, the teddy grahams will get soggy.

2) The “Write on” Pencil Valentine: I picked up a bag of valentine pencils, then we used double-faced tape to secure a “flag” as Mav called it, onto the pencil saying notes like “Valentine, your write for me” and “Your Sharp!” Cute, but understandably probably not a favorite valentine of kids.

3) The Two of a Kind Valentine: I picked up a bag of tootsie pops, but most any treat could be used, again, used double face tape and a peice of red cardstock to fold over the sticks and secure with the tape (get GOOD tape). Then wrote on the note, “We’re a Perfect Match” and “2 of a Kind”.

4) You Make My Day Bookmark Valentine: I liked this one, because it re-used old calenders, and seemed like a fun idea for teachers. Basically use last years calender, and cut out the top week, so you get your days listed on top, and a full week with numbers. We actually cut out just Mon-Fri to make it shorter. Then paste it on colored paper (Maverick loves working with paste/glue), punch a hole, tie a ribbon on top, and write sayings like “You make me WEEK in the knees” or “You make my Day”, etc. We also added some heart and flower stickers on the calendar.

Since my son still likes to work on these kinds of “art projects” with me, I will take advantage of it all I can. Also good practice for writing his name, he did really well in the beginning but then had an idea of drawing “train tracks” on the valentine first, and then writing his name. Well it was hard to get him to his name when he was busy with train tracks. At any rate, it gets the creative juices going a little bit and is an activity beyond trains and monster trucks, kind of.