Works For Me: Homemade Valentines

I have three school-aged children, each with roughly 25 kids in their class.  Add to that the 15 kids in my daughter's preschool class, and that's a lot of valentines to prepare. 

Since I have so much extra time these days, I thought I'd personally crochet 90 little Valentine-themed afghans and bake 90 boxes of homemade, perfectly-iced cookies. 

Oh, I hope you know how I jest.

This is an especially busy few weeks for our family, and I didn't feel like over-seeing the signing of 90 store-bought cards.  Instead, this year I created Valentines on the computer, and I printed them out on cardstock.  The boys are cutting them out, taping a dollar-store pencil to the back of each one (12 pencils for $1!  Score!), and we are DONE.  And nobody had to mass-sign anything.  They turned out really cute, too.  The boys' cards all look the same (except for the name, of course):

For some extra girly fun, I even tied a ribbon on Corrie's:

(And no, I don't normally organize my kids' valentines two weeks early.  I'll be out of town the country the hemisphere during the school valentine parties, and while my husband is a wonderful, hands-on father, he draws the line at valentines.)

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NEXT WEEK'S WFMW is a themed edition--we'll all be listing our favorite on-line stores.  Whether it's your favorite source of good bargains or unusual products, post your links of best places to shop on the web.  The marketing people will love us for this.

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Comments

[Daiquiri]

Love your Valentines! Great idea - I think I'll try it this year :)

[MamaGeek]

Those ideas are fantastic!

[Michelle at Scribbit]

I'm going for the Valentine's ideas too.

[Chrissy at ToddleBits]

Mine are still too young for Valentine's goodies, but the idea is fantastic and one that I hope I will remember for when the time comes.

[Vicky]

What, no half-used erasers attached to the valentines? How will their friends know they are really loved?!

You shouldn't have explained why you were making Valentines two weeks early. I was thinking, "wow. she really has it all together. what an amazingly organized mom." Apparently, I didn't connect the whole "will be outrunning lions" trip being gone over Valentine's day.

[Heidi]

With tons of pencils in our house I think I will run this by my kid too! We love doing arts in our house. A really good get together and spend time. Thanks! And double thanks for putting WFMW up early! teehee

[Brenda]

This is a cool idea! :)

[Leah]

Great job! We've created Valentines on the computer for the last two years.... much easier - and I only have 2 kids going to school!

[Mama Duck]

Those are so cute!! Great idea ;).

[All Adither]

Am wishing I had a good color printer. You're a smart lady.

[Stretch Mark Mama]

Now that I was finally getting past the spelling bee memories, you bring up Valentine's Day At School. Oh, the pain! Johnny loves me! Jeremy doesn't! He thinks I'm "nice!"

[Susan]

We're still working on boxes of cards I bought on clearance at 75% off oh, 2 years ago or so. Teachers here strongly suggest that they are handwritten to give the children practice. A few of my children are unhappy with the lengthy names they were given and my dislike of nicknames. Sorry, Johnjacobjingleheimerscmidt, only 25 more to go :)

[Christine]

Oh, geeze...I messed up and left a long (parenthetical) before I edited. Should I relist? I am really sorry!

[Jasmine31]

Cute cards!

[Nadine]

My kids are at home for school, thank goodness (though in truth, they're both too old for the "mass Valentine giveaway" anyway). Great idea for yours, but WHY on earth you didn't do the afghans, I just don't understand! ;)

[Kelly]

Oh, I can't even fathom doing valentines! Way to go. On another note, my tip says envelopes for lists, but it's not, it's clumpless mascara! Any idea on how to change this?

[MomOnTheGo]

My daughter is only 3 and so the Valentines are mostly Mom work - what I do and what I clean up from what she does but it's fun. There are only 15 other kids in her daycare class and I'm planning to have her help me glue pics of her with a hear to paper doilies and then I'll write a message and her name. I bet she'll be begging me for the computer printed ones soon enough. I seem to remember preferring store-bought cookies over the ones my mom made ;+)

[Julie]

Brilliant idea! I think I will do that this year also. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Alana]

How creative! My kids aren't at the age yet for exchanging Valentine Day Cards, but I am going to keep this idea tucked away. Thank you.

[Nicole @ Life in Progress]

This is my first year for Valentine's so I've been on the lookout for cute ideas. I think this will work perfectly for us. Thanks!

[Dawn @ Baby Addiction]

This is baby's first valentine's day, so we'll do this for his friends at daycare. He is part of a class of ALL boys, so we'll have to find something age and gender appropriate that is CHEAP to go with his cards. Maybe chocolate for the Mommies wouldn't be a bad idea??? Thanks for the tip!

[Mrs. Nicklebee]

Good idea! Individually signed is nice but not always practical during busy times.

[Amy]

I hadn't thought of doing Valentine's on the computer. Usually I buy Valentine's on clearance after Valentine's Day is done for the next year.

[Amy]

P.S. Great idea, though... :)

[ames]

I don't think I ever received a pencil for Valentine's day, but it makes total sense when you're handing them out to all your schoolmates! Who doesn't need a pencil? Great idea!