How to make a valentine

You might call these our favorite Valentine’s Day cards. Another name for these might be “Low-Maintenance Valentines for Busy Mothers of Delightfully Creative Children.”

Last year, the valentine exchange at Lucy’s preschool class caught me flatfooted. I didn’t really want to *buy* valentines for the kids, I didn’t have a lot of time to get special materials, and I also knew that Lucy wasn’t quite at the age to create twenty glitter-and-lace masterpieces for her peers — and I wasn’t quite ready to embrace a big mess.

So I put my thinking cap on: how could Lucy and I make some easy, beautiful valentines without too much fuss?

I realized three relevant facts:

* Lucy and her classmates were not quite literate yet (this is still true, but our window is closing — next year I may actually have to hide my Christmas gift list)
* Glitter is not absolutely required for valentines
* I had recently purchased a large circle punch

The heart cards that we came up with were (we think) totally adorable! Here’s what we did.

# Find colorful (pink!) and patterned magazine pages. Cut out small hearts from these pages. I used fancy scissors with a deckle edge, but this isn’t necessary.
# Cut out big circles from construction paper. We used a jumbo-hole punch that I found at Michael’s, but you could certainly cut them out by hand, or cut out a different shape (squares, hearts, triangles)
# Paste the hearts on the circles with a glue stick
# Write the names of giver and recipient on the cards

Nothing could be simpler! These can certainly be spangled up with glitter, paint, bits of fabric or lace, or anything else you can think of. Last year, Lucy decided that her hand-drawn circles would be just the right adornment for the valentines, so that added a little personal touch from the preschooler. This year, I might be bold enough to get out the glitter glue pens and let the girls go nuts. And as literacy improves, we can always cut out words from magazines, too.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!