handmade valentines

The boys and I have been hard at work over the last several weeks.  Handmade valentines are not something you do the night before.

It all started with those {somewhat scary} dragon valentines.  Diego's been a little into dragons lately, so I thought it would be fun to make some out of hearts.  He added all those cool details, carefully and thoughtfully.

But he was done after two.  And there are twenty-two kids in his class.

So we decided to do lots of different animals as the 14th of February slowly approached....angler fish, crabs, snails, jellyfish...

...just a couple each day...giant squid, even a robot...

....mice and killer whales, too.

We strategically hot-glued a single tootsie roll onto each card...laughing when the mouse had to decide whether to eat the cheese or the tootsie roll and the crab was pinching his.

Joaquin's valentines were ninjas.  I made a little template for him to trace, but as he went along, he got more creative.  He decided to make some jumping, kicking, and even doing the splits!

They crack me up with the sugar stick as a weapon.

The important part of making your own valentines is using supplies you have on hand.  I don't think I've bought scrapbooking paper in years.  I'm just glad these were finally put to good use.

And by request, this year we decided to make special boxes for their valentines.  Joaquin wanted one that looked like a real mailbox so we based it off of this one from CampClem.

Isabela's in sixth grade now, so they don't do valentines.  But when she saw the boxes, she said, "Mom! I wish you would have made me one of those when I was in elementary school!"  (They had always decorated brown paper bags before.)

  This one is for Diego.... Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.  Of course, he said, "Mom, we decorated brown paper bags in class today for our valentines."  He took it in anyway.

I hope they come home stuffed full with cards and candy. 

Happy Valentine's Day!