Handmade Valentines for the Kids to pass out

I talked awhile back about making Valentine's this year.  And we are finally done.  We used my favorite program ever - photoshop  because we like to work smarter not harder.  And it's a lot easier to control cost. 

I used blank 4x6 cards which were about 1.46 for the entire pack which we used 30 of.  We got the pencils and the heart mazes from the dollar store, although I've seen them online even cheaper still.  But I'm not always known for patience.

Here is what the cards looked like after we printed them out:
(I apologize for the poor picture - 3, 4 & 6 year old children do not want to wait for mom to take weird pictures of their stuff)

I used my Creative Memories Personal Cutter (available from your's truly!) to quickly cut them in half.  They aren't perfect, because apparently I passed on my waiting skills to my kids.... 

Even though they weren't cut perfectly, they still got the job done...

I made half of them to color and half of them ready as is because I anticipated that it wouldn't still be fun to color when you are on your 39th card (we made them for all of the valentine parties she would be a part of) Ever the efficient little worker bee, she decided only to color the hearts, and to make them all green, "so no one got mad" :)

I taped on the maze to those cards because getting it lined up just so was a little tricky. These were also the ones I designed to not need coloring, she just needed to write her name.

I let her tape the pencils on.  (I should warn, this ended up costing me a nearly entire roll of tape!) When I designed the cards I intended to have them all taped on the side where there is a little extra room, but half way through she decided she wanted some variety.  So she taped them on any of the sides.

So for less than 5 dollars (more if you count the tape), and about 35 minutes give or take, we have nearly 60 home made valentines! And she loved the play on the words!

If you want to try make your own, here's a JPEG of the Pencil one.  Enjoy!