Kids' Personalized Valentines

It's February! The lovely month of valentine cards, hearts, chocolate (oh wait, that's every month), and when my boys' favorite colors temporarily change from blue and green to red and pink (and more pink this year than ever!).

When I was growing up my family had a tradition of making valentine cards for each other. I still try to carry on that tradition, and I've even started getting the boys involved. But I quickly tire of the commercial cartoony valetines from the stores. Yes, they're inexpensive and easy, and even fun. But every now and then it's nice to do something more personal. With the baby due in a couple weeks I'm not making any promises about fancy cards this year. But I was quite pleased with what we did last year. I've been saving them to share with you:

Last year we made our own cards to print and send. First we started with a photo shoot. Five-year-old Alexander was great at doing all sorts of funny (and scary) poses, as well as sweet ones. Lincoln's pictures just came from photos we already had.

I made a letter-size template in Photoshop, and let Alexander go wild. At the same time I made it a learning experience, as he had to do the typing himself. He "drew" the hearts how he wanted and chose the sayings, pictures, and colors. He got quite creative. I made sure we had some sweet and normal ones to send to the grandparents, and let him send the silly ones to his cousins. (One of them asks, "What do you want for Christmas?" Yes, crazy and nonsensical, but it shows his personality.)

Lincoln's template was fairly uniform, but I did switch it up with four different pictures.

I had the valentines printed on cardstock, then I cut them up with my handy paper slicer. In the meantime I had also made a spreadsheet list of all the relatives and friends to send cards to (with Alexander's input, of course).

Alexander did almost all the hand writing himself using the list I had printed for him. He checked off each name after he wrote it. I was proud of him for doing such a big project.

Lincoln, not even two years old at the time, just scribbled on most of his cards while I wrote the names in for him. I had to make sure to place a new card in front of him every couple seconds, and even then we didn't get his cute scribbles on each card. But we got pretty close.

And now... I'm going to share a simple template with you. This is the one I used for Lincoln. Save it, print it, and paste your own pictures on top.

Pink Valentine Template - Here
Blue Valentine Template - Here

Enjoy!

Or, if you plan on making your own, here are some additional ideas:
-To save time: Have the child design just one card and duplicate it, making them all uniform.
-To save time: Make your own templates without involving the kids. They might still enjoy signing their names and addressing them, especially with their own picture on it.
-To save money: I don't have a color printer, and so the 8.5x11" color copies can get expensive when printing a lot. Try making the templates in 4x6" format and get them printed as photos for cheaper (Although the photos might be harder to write on).
-Just for fun: Make a space for drawing pictures. Or do what my friend did a few years ago and have the kids simply draw a picture, then duplicate and print that as the card.

By just modifying our existing template, my kids might send out valentines this year, after all.
Happy crafting!

P.S. I just added the "You might also like:" widget with hopes that it would link to related posts i.e. for this post have links to other valentine posts. But it seems more random than that, at least right now. So here's just an additional direct link to all my posts labeled "Valentines".

Links to more cute Valentine ideas and printables:

Candy bag toppers from I Am Mamma Hear Me Roar

Heartbreaker printable on MADE

Love Mail Valentines by Noodlehead

Love, Lily Lollipop holder valentine on Grosgrain

Baby Sister Blanket

My six year old has had it in his head that he NEEDS to sew a baby blanket for his baby sister before she arrives. I think it's cute that he's so excited about it. We finished the blanket just a few days ago. It only took us two afternoons.



Alexander picked out the fabric with a very specific blanket design in mind. A few days later my sister gave us a blanket out of the same flowered fabric for Christmas! It would have been very similar to the one Alexander would make, so I talked him into making quilt squares instead of just two large pieces sewn together as he had originally planned (although, I do wish the squares were larger). Now the blankets match, but are not the same. I was also able to talk him into using soft minky dots fabric for the backing instead of pilly fleece.



You may have noticed that the satin blanket binding is two different colors. (That comes from my grandma's stash.) Alexander really wanted the binding to be pink, but we didn't have enough pink to go around. So even though we had enough yellow binding, he decided to do half and half, exactly as shown with the two pink sides touching and the two yellow sides touching.



I love the little message he chose to put on the back of the blanket. So sweet!

I did most of the "steering" while Alexander pressed the pedal for me. It's really fun to have a little helper! It does make things go slower, but it's worth it. I'm trying to let him have more freedom, but I can't resist jumping in and offering my ideas (such as avoiding cheap-o fleece).

My Stella Pixie Hat Knockoff

I got this idea here from Sew Liberated. She is amazing! Her little boy looks so cute in this Stella Pixie Hat! But alas, I'm not a knitter. My sister Bridey is (as you can see from her blog), but I was hoping she'd knit my baby girl a sweater (hint, hint). So I decided to fake—I mean make—the hat myself.



I made this cap out of some knit fabric I had on hand. Who says blue has to be a boy color only? I think it looks so cute with the contrasting white jersey knit. And just to make it especially clear that this is a girl's hat, I added a little white flower with a tiny pearl-like bead center (bead from Grandma's trim stash that I inherited).



I wish I could try this on an actual baby because I'm not sure how the fit will be. (I still chuckle over the ill-fitting monkey newborn onesie and cap I made Lincoln, then had to cut off him because it was so small!) I think my Kirsten doll's head is smaller than a newborn's, so I can't get the full effect. If only I had my one-day-old niece nearby.



Speaking of my newborn niece, I wonder if she'd like one of these. Hmmmm...

Alligator Clips. Real Ones.

Currently in our homeschool (preschool and Kindergarten) the kids and I are learning about the Everglades, and more specifically, alligators. Today we made these alligator clips out of... alligator clips. The original idea (that my sister came up with when we were planning the school year) was to use clothespins and hang them from a string or use a magnet to hold pictures of alligators. But since I didn't have any clothespins I just used what I had on hand. The boys are having fun making their alligators snap at each other. I've got mine in my hair today—all in the name of making education exciting for my kids—but after today it will probably go on my bulletin board.

P.S. Family and friends: if you would like the link to mine and my sisters' homeschool blog for this year, "Soaring Over America", let me know in an email or comment and I'll send you an invite.

Featured!

I'm so honored that my Sawyer Bibs are being featured today on She Wears Flowers. Tammy, the blog author, makes adorable stuff for her three girls and her home. We knew each other way back when, before I had ANY little monkeys swinging from my tree. You should see the cute "cakes" she's been making this week, with tutorials for all the fixings. Thanks, Tammy!

Baby Swing Makeover

See that flowered fabric? I bought it a few months ago, not sure what I would make out of it, but knowing that I would "need" it for the baby.



I bought this baby swing at a yard sale earlier in the year. I wasn't crazy about the cover. So I decided to make a new cover. Then I decided I would reuse the old padding for the new cover. Then I decided to just cover the old cover. Then I realized that the only part I really didn't like was the animals with the weird patterned oatmeal background. So I decided to just cover those parts. I saved myself a lot of time!



As I looked through my fabric stash I realized that the orange and yellow flowers on brown would go perfectly with the striped trim already on the cover. Ah Hah! So I did "need" that fabric, just as I predicted!



The green striped bias tape was leftover from Sawyer's bibs (last post).



So what do you think? The baby swing was okay without the makeover, but it's definitely more girly than before (although not your traditional pink). And it's so much fun to be able to use flowers for the first time on something for my own kids!

Baby Sawyer Bibs

You are probably expecting to see baby girl things. But one of my sisters recently had a baby boy, so I needed something for him.



These simple-to-make bibs are backed with washcloths and have Velcro closures.



I love bias tape! Especially when it is inexpensive and comes in any fabric I want! (Meaning, I make it myself)



Lincoln, my little monkey, models one of his newest cousin's bibs:

Feminine Flower Brooch/Hair Clip

Remember my feminine flower headband from last year? This morning I needed a pin for my sweater so I whipped this up in a minute or two. So easy! The silk flowers came from a craft store closeout I went to last year. (Zim's—it was the craziest place, like I stepped into a time machine and went back to a craft store of 25-30 years ago.)



All that's needed for this project (besides the flower, of course) is an alligator clip, a brooch pin, and a little hot glue. Most of the time spent on this project was waiting for my mini glue gun to heat up.



Here's my 34-week pregnant belly with the brooch/hair clip and headband set.



Maybe I should save some of these flowers for the baby girl!



I like the flower as a hair clip because I can place it lower in my hair than the headband. When I wear the headband to church I feel like I'm blocking the view of the person sitting behind me!



Speaking of flowers, I'm really enjoying Grograin's month of Shoe Sugar. I need to make some of these! I also want to make more homemade flowers like the one I made for Melanie's purse last year.

Karissa's Apron

I promised an apron to my sister-in-law for her bridal shower ages ago. Here (finally!) is the finished product. A month or two ago the Relief Society had a craft day, and making aprons was one of the crafts. I already had the fabric picked out, so it was a great way to get the project going. How fun it was to sew along with friends! Let's do it some more!



Here's the little darling herself, modelling the apron. Doesn't that inspire you to cook or bake?



I love the over-sized rick rack and absolutely adore the turquoise ball trim. I got some more of that for a blanket I'm going to make for Baby Girl.

Homemade Christmas: Canvas Silhouettes (with Tutorial!)

Now that all the gifts have been opened I can share my Christmas projects with you! This year my sister Sadie and I had each other for family gifts.



I made each child a silhouette of themselves, and a combined one for my sister and her husband. After sending off the gifts I was nervous that the kids would be upset they weren't getting toys from me. I'm happy to say that I've only heard good reports, and even my brother in law seems to like them (and he's not a homemade gift kind of guy). What makes this gift fun is that it can really show the personality of each person.



Interested in making one yourself? Here's a quick tutorial:

Step 1: Taking or Finding Photos. As you can see, the pictures don't need to be super-high quality. For these I had my nieces and nephew do fun poses. I got some great action shots of my nephew and some cute poses from the baby, but nothing exciting from the older girl, who was not in the mood for pictures. So I looked back and found a cute picture of her playing in the mud in her swimsuit. Now THAT was a pose with personality! Since she loves wearing skirts I Photoshopped a skirt from a different picture onto the swimsuit one. Ta-da!





Step 2: Photoshopping(Optional). I wanted to see what the finished product would look like before I decided to proceed. So I used my eraser tool in Photoshop to crop around the whole picture to just the person. (It helps if the person is in front of a solid white background so you can use the Magic Wand tool.) Then I made the person a solid color and played around with the fonts until I had it the way I wanted:





Step 3: Printing and Cutting. Print your photo (or Photoshopped image) and cut out the image to make a stencil. I tried using both the white space background and the image as the stencil, but really it just depends on what colors you want for the foreground and background. (For the couple silhouette I actually used both stencils.) Use a small pair of scissors or an X-Acto knife for cutting. Print an extra copy that won't be cut to have on hand for reference, especially if it is a detailed image.



If you're using two people in different colors then cut out each person separately.


Step 4: Grab your Canvas. For the kids I used 8x10" canvases that can be hung straight on the wall. For the couple I found a thin flat 9x12" canvas to fit the frame I already had.

Step5: Stencil Painting. Place your stencil on the canvas. I just held the paper in place with my hand. (I wonder if freezer paper stenciling works on canvas? I'll try that next time.) Instead of mixing paints to get your colors, I suggest just picking a color straight from the paint tube. It just makes touch-ups easier. It's hard to match a mixed color after it's dry. I used acrylic craft paints from a craft store.

For this one I painted the background a solid color and left the person the white color of the canvas. Later I painted over her in cream, but since she was already white I didn't have to paint multiple coats. For the kids' silhouettes I had my own boys help me paint the whole canvas a solid color, then I used the stencil to paint the person on in white. I had to do a few coats since I was painting with a light color on top of a dark one.



If you're doing two people in different colors: let the first person dry, then use your 2nd person stencil:



Step 6: Touching-Up and Names. Touch up any little mess-ups you may have made and paint on the names. I chose to do this free-hand because making a stencil for all those little letters seemed much too tedious!




Step 7: Varnish. With acrylic craft paints you should really put some sort of finish on it. I like to use varnish with a satin finish (instead of gloss). You could also use Mod Podge.



And your done! Okay, maybe this wasn't as "quick" a tutorial as I expected, but hopefully it helps.

I put this one into a frame to make it more elegant, but mostly because I happened to already have a nice frame with no glass. The painting didn't need it! (I left the cardboard corners on the frame since the gift was taking a road trip to California).