our happy face and flowery valentines

There's something about creating homemade Valentines that makes my heart skip a beat.

So as long as I'm able--and my kids are willing--I hope to help them with their Valentines for their pals each year.

Last year, we made simple, glittery, Foamie-clad Valentine cards while we jammed to Laurie Berkner, so this year I thought we'd do something different.

I saw these cute Flower Valentines in Family Fun Magazine (I swear I don't work for them--but I'd love to!).

Anyway, I couldn't live with myself if I sent Owen to school with the same ones. So for him, we created Happy Face Valentines, and they are way too cute.

• Flower & Happy Face Valentines: These are pretty simple to make; they just require cutting out shapes ahead of time and picking up inexpensive lollipops.

the patterns

I made a verrrry simple pattern that includes both the Flower Valentine and the Happy Face Valentine, and it's here to download if you'd like.

The Flower Valentine has three parts: a pinwheel, a small circle, petals, and leaves.

The Happy Face Valentine has a small circle and a large circle.

We used old cards (seriously, the possibilities for cards are endless!), some cardstock, and some wrapping paper for the parts but construction paper for the big circle, petals, and leaves.

For the last few days, every now and again, Maddy and I would trace and cut. If I folded construction paper and cut right over the pattern, I could cut out six or more at once.

They were done in no time.

Today, I used a sharp knife to make a hole in the middle of each so that they were ready for assembly this afternoon.

Maddy assembles her Flower Valentines

Then Owen signed his name on the large circles, enough for his school buddies and teachers, and Maddy wrote her name on her petals.

Cora wrote her 'C' on a few petals, but then she was finished.

When the names were written, we assembled.

The Happy Face Valentines just required the lollipop, small circle, and large circle.

The Flower Valentines required a lollipop, then the pinwheel, small circle, petals, and leaves.

I put a tiny piece of tape on the last piece of all the Valentines to keep them from falling apart, but if the hole is small enough, it's pretty stable.

Maddy's finished Valentines!

Maddy and Owen complained like crazy after writing their names when they hit the ninth or tenth times, but knowing they could have a lollipop while they assembled their 'cards' was reason enough to plow through. (And I loved the name-writing practice I forced upon them!)

I was thinking about taking the letter stamps--at least for Cora to stamp her name on her cards--but I never got around to it. With two feet of snow coming tomorrow, we've all got snow on the brain.

But it sure was nice to spend time in a sunny, happy-faced, lollipop flower garden for a bit today before we're surrounded by winter once again.