valentine’s day cards

I’ve never liked Valentine’s Day. In fact I’ve hated it for most of my life (pre-hubs of course). Hate’s a strong word, severely disliked it. It’s always too much expectation, inevitable disappointment and a general feeling of uneasiness-guess that’s what forced affection does to me. I know I’m not alone. But like so many things, once I had kids that all changed. Now it’s all about the colors, the candy, the crafts and the general feeling I can only describe as gush. Yes, I just made up a feeling. Yesterday the girls put their Valentines together and even though it was sprinkled with tantrums, for the most part it was a very enjoyable half hour. Monday night, at midnight of course, I was inspired to make these Valentine’s Day cards and it’s kind of scary how excited I am about the way they turned out. The rest of the goodies all came from Michaels, and they’re still there-I just went yesterday to get them. The only thing that might be tricky were the bubbles, which I found in the wedding section of the store, not the Valentines display, which was slim pickings by the time I got there. I broke my cardinal rule of never gifting bubbles (such a mess) because I thought a bunch of messy 2-year-olds was better than a bunch of sugar high 2-year-olds. For Elle’s more sophisticated Kindergarten group, we went with classic Hershey’s kisses in festive colors. The assembly was easy and as you can see below the reward was massive. If you like the girls’ cards, make them your own with this download. Print them out on some card stock, cut them into squares and share the love.

Silver pipe cleaners to fasten the tags, which we punched a hole through using one of these.

As bubbles go, these are not insanely messy. Sorry moms they were too cute, had to do it.

Elle (aka Snaggletooth) hard at work.

Coco testing the merchandise.

This was the best part of my day. Brief, but beautiful.