Valentine's Day 2023

Valentine’s Day arrived this year and my youngest son requested basketball-themed valentines for his school party. For the last few years we have strived to send non-food, non-candy, and allergen-free valentines for school parties, in support of my nephew who has a lot of food allergies, and this year was no exception.

I found these basketball pens on Amazon and they came in a pack of 24. Of course, we only needed 30, so I ordered two packs.

We headed to Pinterest for ideas for cute things to put on cards. And we’re suckers for a cute pun!

Next I made these simple basketball cards in Adobe Illustrator. The back just says “Love," and my kid’s name on the same basketball image. I printed them on my home printer onto card stock and cut them out with a 2.5 inch circle punch. The punch I have is Martha Stewart’s brand and it’s an awesome punch, but it’s been discontinues. Here is one from Fiskars that will work great. FYI, a 2.5 inch circle fits perfectly on a wide-mouth mason jar lid.

I attached each pen to a tag using some washi tape that I had to buy because I’m not a frequent user of washi tape. I found some food-themed tape on clearance at JoAnn’s.

In hindsight, I just should’ve used clear tape because at times the washi tape covered up some of the words.

Here’s a breakdown of the cost of this year’s valentines:

• basketball pens - $20.98/pack of 24

• washi tape - $5.99 for 8 rolls from JoAnn’s, on clearance

• card stock - already had

• printer - already had

At the end of the day, each valentine came to just under $1 each.

I have a love/hate relationship with printers. After owning and working with printers from Canon, Epson, Brother, Xerox, and HP, I always end up with HP because the print quality and color management has always proven to be closest to what I see on my calibrated monitor. Right now I have an HP Envy color inkjet printer. The print quality is okay, but nothing compared to a HP photo printer I had years ago (I STILL miss that printer). But ALL printers have their moments. Mine currently doesn’t want to connect to my desktop computer, it will only print from my phone. ::massive eye-roll:::

Here you can read about valentines I have created for previous years.

Does your family celebrate valentines day? If so, what traditions do you follow?

Valentine's Day 2021

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)

• 15 sheets of card stock

• paper cutter

• 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.

Valentine's Day 2020

We don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day. Both my husband and I think it’s a very commercial holiday; we didn’t even celebrate when we were dating. The fact that the anniversary of our first date is January 31st (22 years!) was enough for us to just skip Valentine’s Day all together.

Since my kids started school, we’ve done a smidge more, but still not THAT much. I do step up to reasonably-above-average in the parenting department and make custom valentines for their class parties. Every year I expect them to ask for boxed sets from the store and they continue to surprise me with wanting something fun and custom.

Last year I vowed to not send candy to school. This year I vowed to not send food at all. We scoured Pinterest for ideas and saw fun sayings to go with toy airplanes. A thorough Amazon search for inexpensive airplane gliders at different sizes, price points, and availability to get here within a few days (because you KNOW we didn’t start these until a few days before Valentine’s Day) and we found these great gliders! They came in clear poly bags (which I really liked) and had a bunch of different color combinations.

I took the same cartoon faces I made of my boys from last year and turned them into pilots and I LOVE how they turned out.

I don’t think I will be able to get away with these same cartoons next year. I’ll have to make new ones.

The card stock was printed with two per 8.5x11 page and then I trimmed them with a paper cutter and folded them in half. Two staples attached them to the clear poly bags.

We found a bunch of different sayings for these, and these three were the winners. I wanted to use “you’re so fly” but my kids had NO idea what that meant. I think I showed my age.

Price Breakdown:

Airplanes: Amazon, $16.99 for 36. I ordered two boxes total for my kids’ classes, so $36.44 including sales tax.
Printing: Office Depot, color printing onto #65 card stock, $17 including sales tax
Paper Cutter: already had one
Stapler & staples: already had those

Total: $53.44 which was just about $.74 cents per valentine. And since there are 26 kids in each of my kids’ classes, we had a few extras that we gave to teachers, neighbors, and a few non-school friends. This was definitely more than I wanted to spend, but my kids LOVE how they turned out and so do I. I may have to add these to my Etsy shop for next year!

School Valentines, 2016-2019

We don’t do much to celebrate Valentine’s Day in our family. It’s just not a holiday we celebrate; even back when my husband and I were dating.

With our boys in school now, Valentine’s Day is back on our radar and every year I fully expect my boys to want store-bought, character valentines. It’s been a few years now and they’ve surprised me with wanting something custom-made by their mom. I’m not sure whether to feel used or that I set myself up for it.

The year my oldest was in kindergarten, we missed his party because he only attended school three days a week, and the Valentine’s Day party fell on a day he didn’t attend. I thought I was off the hook with valentines until he went back to school after the weekend and a box of Valentines and treats was waiting for him from his classmates. I felt like a stellar parent.

The next year I knew he would have been happy with character Valentines from Target, but I wanted to do something fun and non-edible since there were a couple of kids in his class with scary allergies. We already had a bunch of bacon bandaids, so I made this little card and printed them onto card stock, then added the bandaid with double-sided tape.

The following year, my oldest set his expectations high with something fun again and considering the sheer amount of candy he got the year before, I wanted to try and avoid food again. So we went with hand warmers! I took his photo and played with it in an iPhone app called PicsArt. Then I added the background and text in Adobe Illustrator. We stuffed the card and a hand warmer into a some 4-bar envelopes I had left over from a baby shower and done!

Last year (2018), both kids were now in school and my oldest wanted to use PicsArt again to make some fun photos. I asked both boys to put on a red shirt and they chose the same Manchester United jersey. Then we made their cards with PicsArt, a little Illustrator, and we taped mechanical pencils and Dove chocolate hearts to their cards.

This year, I was feeling very meh about Valentine’s Day and was all set to hit up Walmart and see what boxed valentines they had left 3 days before their school parties. Then my oldest asked what fun Valentines we were going to make this year and if we could go look on Pinterest for ideas. I couldn’t say no. We searched for non-candy valentines and saw a couple of baggies of Goldfish crackers with a fun, fishing-themed greeting. That was the winner! My boys (especially my oldest) are WAY into fishing right now.

Here’s what we made:

We already had a box of Ziplock snack-size baggies that we weren’t using much (they’re so small!), so we bought a few big boxes of Goldfish Crackers filled enough for both classes. Then I took photos of each of my kids in good light and re-drew them in Adobe Illustrator, added the cartoon-y fisherman bodies, a less-then-thrilled fish, and Voile! The “Hooked on You” graphic is on one side and the “Fishing you…” graphic is on the other. The only difference is the names and different heads, of course.

I saved some time (because I created these 2 days before the parties) and had everything printed onto 8.5x11 card stock at my local Office Depot. I trimmed the pages, scored, and then stapled them onto the baggies that my boys filled. I really love how they turned out…. so much that I may add them to my Etsy shop next year that others can customize.

I know there are only a few years where we’ll get to make Valentines for school. I’m pretty sure they stop around middle school. Whether you celebrate or not, have a Happy Valentine’s Day!