DIY Cute and Easy Valentine’s Day Cards for Kids
Second grade seems to be the transition from homemade cards required to homemade cards optional for Valentine’s Day. It’s usually quite a task to get my kids to make Valentine’s Day cards. The first five or six go pretty smoothly as they are earmarked for their closest friends, but the last two dozen are difficult to extract. Luckily, we had two days off due to a blizzard named Nemo so we had plenty of time to do this over two days in two steps.
Toilet Paper Roll Heart Valentine’s Day Cards
Despite the option to buy Valentine’s Day cards this year, I found an easy craft using a toilet paper roll to stamp hearts on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect to make with my son. I was hoping his 5th grade sister could be persuaded as well. She ended up making her own cards but rejected the toilet paper roll heart idea.
This easy art project for kids only requires:
- Card stock. We used 8.5 x 11 inch card stock cut into 1/4ths.
- Tempera paint.
- 1 toilet paper roll if you use both sides. 2 is good too.
Confession: We had his sister, Grasshopper and Sensei, cut the card stock while working at her Commercial Art Studio internship. They have really nice paper cutters there so the cards were perfectly uniform.
My son chose red and blue paint — no pink for him! He opted to stamp one color on each end of the toilet paper roll which we squished slightly to make the heart shape.
My son stamped all the cards for phase 1. We let them dry overnight. Thank goodness he made a few extra for mess ups.
The second step was writing out the cards. Since my son has a huge class and had to make nearly 30 of them including teachers and aides, he kept the words to a minimum. I taped on a lollipop.
The final product! We were allowed to give candy as long as the kids ate it at home.
Whoppee Cushion Valentine’s Day Card for Kids
My Mom Friend Lynn came up with this great Valentine which she did for her third grade son. He’s best friends with my son, so my son enjoyed hours of whoopee cushion fun! She also attached a small bag of candy to the card which is barely visible but very much appreciated by my child.
If you like this idea, I found 36 Whoppee cushions for $17 (about 50 cents each) which is the best price I could find on Amazon.
Click on image to examine at Amazon.
Crayon Heart Valentine from the Teacher
My son’s teacher made each student a crayon heart. Valentine’s Day happened to fall on our 100th day of school too!
Follow PragmaticMom’s board Art with Kids on Pinterest.
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Those are lovely–a simple, fun way to make cards. Printing is such a fun technique.When your son is a little older, you might try woven hearts with him (or maybe this is something your daughter would enjoy right now). (I want to put in a link, but I think that’s maybe not allowed?)
Hi Asakuyume,
Woven hearts sounds lovely. I’m so sorry about not being able to link. My commentluv system doesn’t seem to allow it. If you send me the link via email, I’ll add it as a comment. I’m sure my kids would love it!
Love the red and blue for the more masculine valentines- I’m impressed you could get him to be all arty for these, my kids refuse to make their own valentines, so we always get the store-bought versions. And btw, I think I may have to give my sister a whoopee cushion valentine this year; she’ll love it.
Hi Jeanette,
I was only able to make him do this because it was a class assignment. He had to make 29 Valentines — they had to be hand made and not purchased too! Candy was allowed though which was a deviation from the usual policy which sweetened the deal!
And who does’t love a whoopee cushion? PickyKidPix especially loves those! Did not know they are heart shaped though!!
Mia, I have sent you an email with some links!
Thank you to Asakiyume for her wonderful links on Woven Hearts. She says:
The site I used when I made these with my kids seems to be gone, though there’s a cached link that automatically downloads the PDF we used. It’s the second link on this search page, the link that has “PDF” in square brackets on the left:
https://www.google.com/#q=woven+hearts+straight+cut+hearts+in+hearts
It goes beyond the most basic woven hearts, but doesn’t get into the *crazy* difficult patterns that some of them do.
The basic principle, and simple directions, are available here:
http://mylittlenorway.com/2011/12/norwegian-christmas-heart-baskets/
(You’ll see that it’s originally a Christmas ornament–but it makes a great valentine’s day project)
And finally, this page has links to all sorts of sites with all sorts of fancy patterns:
http://papermatrix.wordpress.com/links/
Enjoy!
All the best,
Asakiyume (morinotsuma on twitter)
Thank you sooo much Asakiyume!! I am heading over to check out your wonderful links right now!!
What great ideas! I bought pre-made valentines from Oriental Trading this year for the kids to give out at school. Life is really hectic here, somehow…
Hi MaryAnne,
I would have purchased Valentine’s as well but my son’s teacher required everyone to make their own and for the entire class so we did this assembly line process so he could bang them out. He likes making things but just not 29 times in a row so this worked great! Also, he got the leftover candy!
Love the heart prints! I also thing it is kind of funny the hearts come from a toilet paper roll! Is there a special technique for creasing the tube to make a heart?
Whoppee Cushion is funny too : )
Hi Ann,
No, not really. I think my son just smushed one side with his fist LOL! You remind me that he needs to make 29 more Valentines again this year. Well, today is a snow day so that would be a good project for him and I’m sure I have an empty toilet paper roll around here somewhere!
I love the heart stamps! My daughter would love the whoopie cushion ones, however! 🙂
Hi Emma,
My kids love whoopie cushions too! Even now that they are older! Somethings never get old I suppose!!
These are such fabulous ideas. I love the crayon hearts! Thanks so much for sharing!
Hi Lisa,
Thanks so much! I can’t believe that Valentine’s Day is tomorrow! Boy is this month flying by!
I love this post, such thoughtful ideas. Kiss Days is for everyone, no matter your relationship status on this Valentine’s day!