by Ashley
At our previous childcare facility they didn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, so this was our first year doing a school Valentine’s exchange.
Only, this Valentine’s exchange turned into party x 4 because I’ve got two kids and they celebrated on two different days (so all the kids could celebrate, given that many only attend on MWF or TTh).
There are 25 kids in the class x 4 (again, 2 kids & 2 days of parties), so we needed 100 Valentine’s all together.
Initially I let the girls pick their own box of Valentine’s from Walmart. They’re relatively inexpensive (about $2.50-$3.50 per box), but I realized after-the-fact that I’d only bought enough for one day (not two). Plus, some of the boxes only have 16 Valentines, so I was having to buy 2 in order to cover the 25 kids. When I went back to the store a second time (for day#2 of parties) I decided to do something a little different.
I bought a box of pink Valentine’s themed tootsy roll pops and set about making my own Valentine’s!
I stole the butterfly idea from the back of the tootsy roll box
I cut the papers myself (which certainly weren’t great. I was rushing to do them on short notice), and I let the girls put stickers on the butterfly wings. Ideally I would’ve let them color and really decorate the butterflies, but time was limited.
After the stickers and suckers were in place, I wrote a To/From message.
Really not great, but not bad in a hurry. And it was easy and cheap!! Plus, recipients got a full sized sucker! Score from a kid’s perspective, right? ?
After the party, I also took a picture of another kid’s homemade Valentine this would be super easy, still cheap, and is a creative way of doing something other than the usual boxed Valentine stuff.
Our girls are at a Christian preschool, so it works well for the environment. They just glued this card on the back of a box of sweet hearts. On the front, they filled in the To/From labels. That’s it! Super easy!
So so there you have it. If you’re looking for a cheap, homemade last minute Valentine, here are a couple ideas.
What do you usually do for kids’ Valentine’s exchanges?
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
I love your craftiness and creativity in all these things for the girls. That’s awesome!
I always pick up some valentines on super clearance (around 25 cents a box) in late February for the following year. We then fill in the to/from, and attach whatever candy we have around from after-holiday clearance deals. I usually have a supply of Halloween or Christmas candy purchased at 75% off. That candy is also what the Easter bunny brings to our house, and even St Nick if you check expiration dates (hard candy lasts a long time).
Love this! What a great way to save some money!
Nice job! A friend with twin preschoolers was just talking about this very problem. She ended up getting 100 cards for $4 at the local dollar store and wondered why she hadn’t thought to look there before!
Genius! I haven’t been to the Dollar Store in a hot minute (used to love that place!) I’ll have to remember this for next time!
Dollar store cards here too! $2 for a box of 32 that covered both kids’ classes. And I bought can koozies at the Target dollar spot for the teachers.
Target’s dollar bins are where its at!
I did the picture of my child with a sucker last year. wallet pictures are pretty cheap at Costco. third one down. http://www.remodelaholic.com/valentines-decor-ideas-ra-104/ but maybe not cheap for 100…. hopefully next year you will not have to do 2 classrooms worth.
This is probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen! Puts my homemade butterfly to shame!!!
When my four kids were younger, I always tried to grab some valentines after the holiday was over. It was the last thing I wanted to spend money on but I knew we’d use them. Also , at the dollar store at xmas time I used to find packs of sparkley colored pencils. They were red, green, gold, and silver. We’d make homemade tags and ribbon up the pencils for december presents and keep the red ones for valentines. One of my daycare babes goes to a half day preschool and I checked out his valentines,….one was a homemade crayon in a heart shape glued on some card stock that had “color your heart out” printed on it. A great idea for all those crayon nubbies hanging around but so not convenient for 100 valentines!
Ahhh! I LOVE this idea! And I keep all of our old/broken crayons because I’ve had in the back of my mind that one day I’d melt them down and re-make them (like in the shape of hearts!!!) This will be so perfect for next year!