We’re still dealing with a pandemic and I fully expected our kids’ teachers to send emails asking us not to send valentines to school next week. Our 1st grade teacher actually did, and then rescinded and laid out plans to have us send valentines to school ahead of time and kids will do lots of hand-washing before valentines are exchanged.
My 5th grader informed me that this will be his LAST year exchanging valentines at school because in 6th grade, middle schoolers don’t do valentines anymore (insert eyeroll).
Since we spent the first half of the school year attending school virtually, it became apparent how valuable dry erase makers are in our classrooms. Dry erase markers are used every day in both my kids’ classes to reduce the amount of paper used and hopefully reduce the number of high-touch spaces. Caps get lost and markers dry out, they are played with, and our teachers end up going through Expo markers like water.
We wanted to do another year of candy-free and non-edible valentines, so it was fitting for us to give Expo markers this year and we brainstormed a bunch of fun, punny sayings to put on them.
To save time, instead of drawing my kids’ faces, I created cartoons using a free Photoshop Action Set. The drawings we used on last year’s valentines are now more than two years old and my kids’ hairstyles have changed a lot, it was time for something new.
Expo markers came in packs of 18 at Sam’s Club, so I bought four packs and bagged up the extras into Ziplock bags for both teachers with their own cards.
Supplies & Cost Breakdown:
4 packs of 18 Expo Markers - $54.96 @ Sam’s Club. I think they were cheaper at Costco, but my local store was out.
1 roll double-sided tape (I considered picking up washi tape, but decided to save a few bucks)
computer and printer - I used the free Toon Artist Photoshop Action from Adobe to turn my kids into cartoons. Then I created the heart pattern, added text, and put it all together in Illustrator.
I already had all of the supplies listed except for the markers, so the cost came out to $.94 per valentine. It probably would’ve been cheaper if my Costco had these markers in stock, online lists them at 18 for $10.99. A pack of 36 markers is currently $21.27 on Amazon, or a box of 12 for $7.95, but I didn’t want to wait for shipping. I probably used a few bucks in printer ink, but I use HP’s Instant Ink program, so I have no idea how much that ended up being.
These were definitely more than I would have liked to spend on valentines, but they turned out cute and heck, next year we’ll only be making them for ONE class.
And in true reMARKably average parenting fashion, these were done a full week early because I got my weeks mixed up and thought their Valentine’s Day parties were THIS Thursday instead of next Thursday. In the end, I didn’t really need to save time and I could’ve ordered Expo markers from Amazon. I’m going to bed now.