Good morning!  Can you believe it’s already half way through January?  I swear it was New Year’s yesterday!  Since time is flying by, we’re already talking about celebrating Valentine’s Day, and you can see how I plan to celebrate here.  Today I’m going to show you step by step directions to making a cute kids Valentine’s craft.  I found the idea for this craft on Facebook but I can’t seem to find who posted it.

A funny story about this craft was that it was made during an impromptu play date.  I had discussed doing this with some of my daughter’s play mates but never confirmed a day or time and then both of her playmates just showed up one morning to do it.  I was confused at first but was so glad to have something fun to do with my daughter and her friends.  Plus, impromptu play dates are so fun!

Here’s the completed valentine!  It’s perfect to give to friends, grandparents, or siblings.

Now, here are all the steps to making one yourself.

All of the tools you’ll need:

• painted handprints
• red cardstock
• a picture of your child
• scissors
• tape
• glue
• markers

Step 1: Make your child’s hand print by brushing washable paint onto their hand and pressing them onto white card stock, then once dry cut them out.

Step 2: Cut out pictures of your child and glue them onto the red card stock.

Step 3: Tape the cut out hand print over the picture, ensuring to tape the hand print only at the bottom.

*Note: Taping the hand print at the bottom allows the hand print to be folded down revealing the child’s picture.

Step 4: Write whatever message you’d like on your Valentine.  Have fun with this part, by personalizing the message, writing a Valentine’s poem (roses are red, violets are blue, etc.), or coming up with a corny message like those themed Valentine’s you can get at the store.

When your recipient gets the card they’ll have a cute message and a hand print marking how big your child is at that time, then a surprise photo when they fold down the hand print!  It’s a pretty easy craft and gets your child involved in making Valentine’s for the one’s you love.  It only took me about 10 minutes to put together six Valentine’s after the painted hand prints had dried.

If you don’t have any pictures printed of your child, because it’s 2016 and every picture is on your phone, then try the option below.

Just glue the hand print to the red card stock and add a little paper heart to the palm of the hand print.  I had to do this for two Valentine’s because I only had 4 recent photos of my daughter printed out.  Then add your message as discussed previously.

I hope you give this hand made Valentine craft a try and I’d love to see how creative you get with it.  There are a ton of variations you could use; patterned paper, fun messages, different sizes and shapes of the Valentine, you’re only limited by your creativity.  A hand made valentine is a great way to surprise someone you care about.