Will You Be My Valentine?

Valentine’s Day is a-coming, and it’s bringing panic and overspending with it. I could write a million things about what is wrong with the way we celebrate Valentine’s Day, but I won’t… instead, I’ll say that the best way to tell someone that you love him/her shouldn’t cost anything. Or, it should be purchased on the 15th at 50% off. That truly speaks to my thrifty little heart.

Grown-up griping aside, Valentine’s day still holds its magic for children. Think back: envelopes stapled to the wall with construction paper hearts glued onto them. Every classmate slipping a card or candy into your carefully-decorated envelope with a sentiment that said, “I think you’re super great”. Sign me up for that! Why didn’t we ever carry that tradition into adulthood?

Lila is wildly excited for her Valentine’s Party at preschool. “It’s Pink Day at school, mom! We get to wear PINK!”

I try to ignore the fact that she’s wearing a pink shirt as she waves her arms from her car seat. Pink is status-quo in our house. But still, a day dedicated to it? Pretty exciting in Four Year Old Land.

During a few of my trips to the store, I considered buying a pack of printed valentines to hand out to her classmates. Then I stumbled upon this incredible simple, yet fantastic, template on the Silhouette gallery.

Even if you don’t have a paper cutter, you could easily create your own template for tracing and cutting out these cards. Each valentine is simply the outline of a butterfly with two small slits in the center (for lollipop holding purposes). You could do hearts or flowers as well, but I like the cleverness of the lollipop being the body of the butterfly.

I cut the butterflies out of some cardstock that I had in my hoard of craft supplies. Yes, some of the colors aren’t the traditional valentine-y pink and red, but I thought that made them extra special. Tradition is for sissies. And for people who are willing to drive to some big-box-Crafter’s-Paradise and pay extra money for cardstock when you’ve got perfectly good blue and green stuff right here!

Once I had cut out all of the butterflies, Lila and I got down to work. She insisted on being part of the assembly line.

She carefully selected each lollipop according to the color of the paper (and which classmate she was considering at the time: “Devon gets watermelon. I know she likes watermelon.”).

Warning: It may take a bit of concentration to get those suckers into place.

But in the end, it’s so worth it! The lollipops (we went with Chupa Chups this time – a favourite) make perfect butterfly bodies. The paper is festive enough to stand alone; we didn’t need to embellish it any further.

Oh, who am I kidding? I couldn’t completely leave out the embellishments. I cut little birds out of black vinyl — with hearts as wings! Does it get any cuter than this?!?! *This is the part of our crafting where I realized that I am completely living vicariously through my child and am fawning over the valentines while my child is pleading to open a lollipop.* I stuck the bird onto the left side of the butterfly and wrote a message on the right. Lila can write her name, but very deliberately and (most importantly) s.l.o.w.l.y. I decided that I would be in charge of all-things-writing for this project.

Also, I send huge props to her preschool teachers who insisted on every valentine being addressed to “my friend” instead of a class list. This makes my life (and theirs) infinitely easier.

Only three lollipops were addressed to specific people. Lila was adamant that her teachers got valentines from her as well. Hubby rolled his eyes as I clutched this apple paper to my chest and sighed with happiness. I know – I’m dorking out hard over the details, but I can’t help myself. This paper was also in my stash. I like clearance racks. It may be a problem.

And when I see Lila carefully smooth out the creases in the butterfly wings, and wonder aloud how a red lollipop with look with blue and green paper, I think, “Have I created a monster? A future crafting monster?!?”

Oh well, we’ll just have to go to Michaels together.

Stay tuned for more Valentine’s Day projects! I’ve got a couple more running around on the hamster wheel in my brain.

Until then, here is a valentine for you, because I think that you are super-great. And you have nice hair. And you make me laugh. You’re awesome, Valentine!

5 comments

ABOUT AUTHOR

Tara

Baking with the Kids: Joy and Chaos

The Books in Our House: February

February 6, 2013

Mary Stark

I love the “tradition is for sissies”!

- February 7, 2013
  
  Tara @ Suburble
  
  And it is, isn’t it? 😉
  
  “Pink is so mainstream…” – I’m just chanelling my inner Hipster.
  
February 9, 2013

Callista

We made these last years 🙂 I don’t know if we ever got yours to you guys though, we also added googly eyes to the butterfly lollipop heads. But no fancy cutter, you know me, ghetto with scissors and a sharpie hahaa.
Your vday post sounds similar to mine…ugh this ridiculous holiday, but I can’t contain myself now that I have kids haha. It will be up on Vday I didn’t want to post early and ruin the surprise of Skyla’s cards…she made one for L and L of course and is so excited to share them hahaa!

February 11, 2013

Shari

These are adorable! I wish I was as crafty as you Tara! Maybe one day when we get out of the new born phase I will attempt something, for now I will just enjoy yours!

- February 12, 2013
  
  Tara @ Suburble
  
  Oh, you are as crafty as I am, Ms. Scrapbooking-Guru. I’m sure that as soon as Miss H starts sleeping though the night, your creative juices will start flowing!