Make a Homemade Card and Give a Gift

Valentine's Day is a great time of year to show your love for someone - especially your kids! Make them a special card and give them a small gift! Or have everyone in the house make a card for someone else and have an exchange. It would be a great family activity!

This homemade card is extra easy and picking out a personal gift can be a breeze too. All the reds and pinks are sure to warm anyone's heart.

(Happy Valentine's Day! All of the photos on this page are my own)

Card stock paper, stampers, ribbons, markers, glue or other adhesives and ink.

These items are all common, easy to get items. You can find them at any local store. You don't have to spend a fortune either. Watch for sales and buy them at other times of the year and save them for Valentine's Day. Use scraps left over from other projects. Make this an inexpensive family activity.

You can use glue or sticky tape to do this step. I used school glue to hold the papers together. You can skip this step if you only want to make a single color card but I like the depth it gets by using 2 pieces of different colored paper

No matter what holiday or celebration you are making a card for, you will be able to find self adhesive felt shapes to stick on it. They make them for every holiday you can think of and they're so easy to use! They look great and there's no cutting or messing around with getting the shapes to match and they look homemade. It's an easy shortcut!

I added some marker thread marks around the hearts to make them stand out a little bit. It really makes the card look like it has that personal touch! It only took a few minutes to get them all added.

I was able to borrow the cupid stamp for a friend. If you don't own what you need, ask around! if you are going to be making lots of cards, it might be worth it to invest in your own. Otherwise, borrowing one works just as well! You can also watch for these at garage sales or resale shops to pick them up a little cheaper than buying them new because they can be expensive depending on the brand.

You want to add things that will give your Valentine's Day card a special touch and stampers are a way to do that.

Add a personal touch to your card by using a stamper. This stamper is a pretty generic stamper but it works! This one would be especially good if you plan on making lots of cards!

I used to love watching the Shrinky Dinks shrink. It's really fun if you have a toaster oven or a window if your regular oven so you can watch them shrink. It doesn't look like anything is happening and then all of a sudden it shrinks down to a tiny little hard piece of plastic that you've drawn or colored. These are really fun little Valentine's cards!

There's one activity that is my all time favorite and my kids love it too! We love getting heart shaped sugar cookies, either homemade or store bought and loading them up with frosting and then decorating them with all different sprinkles and red sugars. I love the taste of the cinnamon heart candies along with the cookie and frosting. It's a taste that is unique to Valentine's Day!