Holiday Mamasita: Putting Some "Heart" Into Making Our Valentines

Making your own valentines can be a creative and fun experience. Every year that I rushed out at the last minute to by those ugly boxed cards they sell at CVS or Target, I vow that the next year I'm going to prepare early and make homemade cards with my kids. A couple of times my endeavors turned into fiascos! Have you ever bought that horrible glitter gel glue, thinking it would be just perfect for decorating valentines? The kids thought it was great too, and they used it in abundance to make their cards extra colorful and sparkly. The problem is, that damn stuff never dries!! So of course it smudges as you try to put the cards into the envelopes or write on the other side and at this point those boxed cards seem like Martha Stewart personified compared to the mess we've made. But with trial and error and a good bit of experience, we have come up with a few a less painful methods.

My first bit of advice is to keep it as simple as possible. You can cut construction paper into hearts, squares or rectangles or you can buy blank note cards in a variety of shapes and sizes at your local craft or stationary store. Next you can purchase a few rubber stamps, ie, hearts, flowers, or any other valentiney motif, and a stamp pad or two (red, pink or purple). Glitter is the next essential item needed because everything looks more dazzling with glitter and kids absolutely love it. I also highly recommend a glue pen to more easily delineate where the glitter will be "stuck". If you collect one or two items yearly, before you know it you'll have quite a collection and you can use this stuff for lots of occasions. I keep a box of blank note cards, glitter, glue pens, rubber stamps and stamp pads.

My nine year old daughter Lizzie loves
doing art projects.

Once you have your supplies and you've decided if you are going to cut out your valentines or use pre-cut note cards, you can experiment with colors and stamps and come up with endless designs. I'm always amazed at the things my kids come up with...it's obvious they got higher quality art intructucion in school because, they are far more likely than me, to think out of the box. We usually stamp the cards, then go back and add glitter and let them dry. After they dry (glitter and glue pen dry pretty fast...nothing like the dreaded gel!), we write our messages on them. One downfall is that you will have glitter in your life for the next week at least...I have glitter permamently ground into both of my tables...I think it adds life and character!

After stamping the card, add glue with the glue pen.

Pour on some glitter and distribute it over the card so you
get some glitter on all of the glue. I put a paper plate under the
card so the excess glitter can be reused. A little glitter goes a long way .