DIY Valentine Cards Kids Crafts, Valentine’s Day Cards for Teachers & Grandparents #BIC4ColorPen

Valentine’s day is coming up soon! Are you prepared? Do you have your Valentine Cards ready? This year we are doing something different. We not only wanted to save some money, but we wanted to make our Valentine Cards more personal for two very special groups of people in our children’s lives. Their teachers and their grandparents. Both of which are very important to my children. So we decided this year we were going to make Valentine cards out of simple kids crafts to share with their teachers and grandparents. It is amazing how easy these are to make! Yet they are definitely more cherished than a store purchased generic card.

Valentine Cards are simple yet creative

Not only is the valentine cards easy, but they also don’t cost a lot of money to make. You will need the following supplies:

• Wallet Size photo of your child-One for each person you are creating a Valentine card.
• Scissors
• Tape or glue stick
• Colored Construction paper
• Stickers
• BIC 4-color pen
• Glitter (optional)

To begin you simply fold the colored construction paper in half. Now you have the option of having a real card which you decorate, or you can create a heart shaped card to decorate. I gave my kids the option and they all choose to have a heart shaped card instead of a regular rectangle. So then you simply cut out a teardrop shape from the folded card, unfold and you have a heart shape!

You can continue to cut out heart shapes from all different colors and sizes and use these to decorate the heart valentine cards.

Allow  your children freedom to decorate in their own style. Let them be creative. I let my boys guide me through this craft. I prompted with ideas, but mostly they designed the Valentine Cards. That is half the fun. Watching such creativity flow through your children. They wanted different sizes of hearts as backgrounds for their photos. So I cut out more hearts small enough to be a background to a wallet size photo yet small enough to fit in the original heart.

For even more fun, create a heart frame. For this simply take the scrap paper from a previously cut out heart, and cut another teardrop shape slightly larger. When you unfold this it will be a frame in the shape of a heart. It brings a more creative look and also is less wasteful of paper that normally would be scrapped and thrown away. I always use the scrap papers to cut out smaller hearts until there aren’t any areas large enough to cut out a new heart. Then I will move onto a new piece of paper.

 

With all the hearts cut out and the supplies in front of the kids, Give them the glue stick and tape and sit back and watch the magic happen! The kids have a blast being creative! Plus they love that they are creating something so special for their teacher or grandparents. They can make them more personal.

Once the photos, hearts, and stickers are all in place on the Valentine Cards it is time for the labeling. For this we use the BIC 4 color pen. Why this pen? Well that is because I absolutely love it! It gives you four different colors in one pen! I have a hard enough time keeping my craft and office supplies in order, so having four pens in one really helps save up space.

But more importantly, the pen writes very smoothly. It is easy for the kids to write out their personalized messages. It is easy for both Adults and children to grip and handle. And with Pen it is more permanent so the message won’t wipe off or smear like a pencil would. A crayon doesn’t give as crisp letterings, which for my boys is a must. And most markers bleed through the paper. The BIC 4 color pen glides on smoothly even on construction paper and the colors offer my kids the ability to choose the color they want. Or even mix up colors.

To finish off the Valentine Cards, you can’t forget the treat! Since the Valentine Cards are for people we really cherish, we wanted to do something more luxurious. Instead of a small piece of chocolate, dum dum sucker or fruit snack; we got a medium sized box of chocolates in a heart shape. Placed a large piece of clear packaging tape folded over onto the chocolate box. Then applied the Valentine cards on top.

 

All you end up seeing is the personalized Valentine cards, but beneath are hidden the goodies!

Overall, the Valentine’s Day kids crafts cost less than $10 and we made six valentine cards, but only three with chocolates. We are still debating over what to attach to the grandparents valentine cards. The kids wanted something different than a box of chocolates. So that jury is still out.

And after doing all the crafts, we still have a lot of supplies left for more fun kids crafts in the future. And the BIC 4 Colored pen has a long life ahead of it. It will now be put into my office supplies and used for many things such as my budget tracking, schedule, notes for kids, and much more. That is if the husband doesn’t take off with it to use in School. It would come in really handy with his engineering degree.

Be sure to Like BIC on Facebook, and get your  $1 off coupon for any BIC  product. That will save you even more money when you make your own Valentine cards!

Also be sure to visit our BIC PEN Giveaway  from 1/22/13  until 2/5/13  to win your own BIC 4 Color Pen! The giveaway will be open to US  residents! And a quick hint; the first entry is to comment on this post, so be sure to leave a comment before heading over there so you don’t have to return. (Saying, “thanks for the giveaway” is not a valid comment entry for the giveaway)

What do you love most about the BIC 4 color Pen?

What are your plans for Valentine Cards this year?

Do you make or buy your valentine cards?

 

I received a  free sample of BIC Pens from Smiley360 in order to facilitate this review. Opinions expressed are 100%my own and were not influenced. To learn more about Smiley360 visit Join Smiley360.