I love giving and receiving greeting cards but they sure can be pricey! Valentine's Day is creeping closer. So why not make your own? Many of them can be used if you have some simple craft supplies around the house or even with a quick stop at the dollar store.
For Your Eyes Only
This card is great because kids actually get something they can keep and parents won't have to deal with more candy in the house.
Supplies:
- Card stock or construction paper
- marker
- scissors
- glue
- googly eyes (optional)
- plastic heart glasses (sold in a 4 packs at Dollar Tree)
Directions: cut out hearts that are about six inches tall. We all remember the paper fold method from kindergarten, right? Draw or glue eyes on the front of the heart. Slice a hole about 1/2 inch from the outside corner of each eye in order to insert your glasses. Once you insert the glasses, make sure to fold them back down flat to the card. You can write fun sayings like, "For Your Eyes Only", "Eye Love You" or "You are my Sunshine".
Cute as a Button:
Supplies:
- plain paper of choice, cut long enough to be folded in half
- buttons with two holes
- glue
- markers
- scissors
Directions:
Plain paper works best for this one, but by all means, customize it to your liking. You can see from the example to the left, about how tall you would like your card to be, but as I mentioned, cut it longer than taller so you can fold it in half to write a message on the inside. The idea is to glue one button higher than the other so it looks as though they are kissing. If you can draw a stick figure, you can accomplish the bodies on these, too. You can write, "You're Cute as a Button", "No Button But You" etc. Some tiny little hearts drawn with marker add a nice touch.
3D Hot Air Balloon Card:
This one has a fun story. I didn't have any brown paper bag style card stock, so I used an old file folder from our office supply cupboard! A brown paper bag would also make a great card base.
Supplies:
- plain card stock of choice for card base
- two different types of paper for balloons, plain paper for the "LOVE" bunting and additional paper for the balloon baskets (you could also color white paper, brown.)
- scissors
- glue
- marker
- string
- paper punch (optional)
- some type of critter or even your pictures to put in each basket
Directions:
1.) Figure out how tall and wide you want the card to look once it is folded then cut to desired size for the base.
2.) You will then cut out four hearts for the balloons that will go inside of your card.
3.) The LOVE bunting is made by cutting out small triangles of paper. I used a paper punch to make holes to weave the twine through. Once you have weaved the LOVE bunting onto the twine/string, cut to size, once you see how much you need to go between the two balloons. The bunting should not be glued extremely tight, because you want the card to be able to open all of the way and it will hang loosely from the balloons. After cut, secure bunting at the tip of the of each flat heart with glue. Basically, like you were tying a banner to hang in between the two balloons.
4.) We used two hearts and have two left. You will glue the additional hearts to hide the ends of the bunting. Fold your hearts in half, run glue up the crease and stick on top of flat hearts. You don't want to glue the whole second heart down because when you open the card, it will pop up for the 3D effect.
5.) For the basket, you could do something simple like cut a circle in half. Each half of the circle would be one basket. You could put real pictures in the baskets or a little sticker critter.
6.) I used black marker to draw the rope that attached the balloon and baskets.
We'd love to see any of your final products! Please be sure to message me, ltowne@fox17online.com or share on my Facebook
