Craft: Valentines From the Baby

Last weekend, Lila, Ryan and I all worked on a craft together:

Valentines! Obviously Lila isn’t at the age where she really understands Valentine’s Day, but I think there’s something really fun about starting the valentine card exchange at a young age.  Valentine’s Day, to me, is one of those holidays that becomes really fun again once you have kids.  It’s funny, because I guess it’s supposed to be a “romantic” holiday—but my fondest Valentine’s Day memories are still ones from childhood (no offense, Ryan).  My parents would set up a scavenger hunt for me and my sister, setting up clues that would send us running through the house until we finally found our Valentine’s Day present.  My paternal grandparents would always, always, always deliver a Reese’s peanut butter heart, and one year, my maternal grandparents gave me a tiny music box that played the theme song from A Love Story, which I distinctly remember thinking was the BEST. THING. EVER.

Anyway.  Valentine’s Day rocked.  And I want it to rock for my kid too. 

I thought it would be fun to get into the Valentine’s Day spirit by crafting some homemade cards that we could send out to family and friends, from Lila.

To make these valentines, you’ll need cards, ink pads, and your baby’s feet.  Pretty simple, right?

I started with two shades of ink: pink and red, plus the cards:

And then brought in the star of the show:

*Word to the wise—wait until baby is in a pretty good mood to make these cards, as he or she is a pretty integral part of the process.  Lila was in a good mood, and actually had fun stamping her feet down on each card, but if she’d been in a bad mood, this craft would have been infinitely more difficult.  It also really helped having another person (Ryan) hold the baby so that I could align each card before stamping. 

Once you’re set up, line up three cards at a time (I found that three was the magic number for stamping each foot before the ink ran out).  Stamp baby’s right foot with the ink pad just as you would  a rubber stamp, and then gently press the foot down on one side of the card:

(repeat with each card)

Then, stamp baby’s left foot with the ink, and stamp each card again, allowing the foot stamps to overlap a bit so that they form a heart shape.   Repeat until you have as many cards as you need:

After about 15 minutes, we had some very cute cards, and Lila had some very red feet:

…which luckily washed clean easily with soap and water.

When we were done printing the cards, I wrote a sweet little message from Lila on the inside of the cards:

…and decorated each one with a few little heart stickers that I picked up from Hobby Lobby.

Et voila! Done…

…and ready to be mailed out right before Valentine’s Day!