Make Valentines Day Cards

Here is just one idea I came up with to make valentines day cards. This is a holiday greeting card that is always best as a handmade card! This takes me back to my elementary school days when our teachers would have us celebrate Valentines Day by making each of your classmates a handmade card. We would also create little mailboxes to attach to the front of our desks and then take turns dropping off our valentines.
Combine desktop publishing along with arts and crafts in making these cards to give them the crisp clean look of printed text to go along with your handmade creativity.

Materials I used to make Valentines Day cards:
81/2 by 11" card stock
a second sheet of pink cards tock
decorative paper
ribbon
paper punches
glue, glue stick, or glue runner

The first step to take to make valentines day cards like these is to use desktop publishing to help lay out the text for your card. There are two ways to go about laying out the text for this card.
A. You could lay out the text as a 2-up lay-out (or two cards to a page) or
B. You could set up the document as a page sized at 5 1/2" by 8" and then print onto half page sized paper.
If you decide to go with plan B then you will either buy 5 1/2 by 8" paper, or buy regular card stock and have it cut in half for you)

Step One: The text layout. To make valentines day cards creating the front of the card is quite easy using desktop publishing. All you are providing for text is the words "Happy Valentine's Day". Type out your words and align them to the center of each card. These will be printed onto card stock as this is the base of the card.
The inside of the card is a little more tricky as it is heart shaped. You will want this text to be centered inside of the heart. This would be a difficult task if you were to print it and then punch out the heart although you may do this if you wish. What I chose to do is download a heart shaped graphic into my DTP software document and simply place the text centered into the middle of it. This way I can easily cut out the hearts with scissors with my text neatly in place. The inside text of the card should be printed onto plain white printer paper unless you prefer something a bit more colorful.
If you decide to go with a 2-up layout to make valentines day cards you will print onto 8 1/2" by 11" card stock and then have it cut in half. You can choose to cut it yourself although it is very easy and inexpensive to take it to a print or copy shop to have it cut on a machine. You can also simply have all of the invitations copied onto the paper for you and save your computer printer's ink.
* by the way, to give this card a little extra somethin' I used a special font I downloaded from 1001 free fonts.

Step Two:creating the heart shape on the front of the card. OK here are some more choices.
you could:
A. draw your own heart shape!
B Use a large paper punch.
C heres what I did:
To make Valentines day cards like this, this section of the card will need to be made on card stock. I chose a pink 8 1/2" by 11" card stock. I found a heart shaped graphic which I downloaded into my DTP software. I then set up two hearts on the page. I placed them side by side so that where they touched together was directly in the middle of the page.After printing this out onto my card stock I folded the paper in half so that the heart shape showed on the outside both on the front and back. I then cut out the shape using scissors (being careful to cut inside of the lines so they wouldn't show on the card). Where the heart's edges meet on the fold of the card I was careful not to cut through. They must stay attached.
Now you have made a smaller heart shaped card!

Step Three: Making embellishments! First you will make another heart shape using scrapbook, or wrapping, or some sort of embellishment paper. You will make this heart the same size as your card stock paper heart shaped card. I made this shape by using the heart shaped card as a stencil. I traced around the edges with a pencil onto scrapbooking paper and then cut this shape out with scissors.
The next embellishments are the little hearts I littered all over the front of the card. I made these using heart shaped paper punches. I used two different sized punches and also two different papers. I used the leftover pink card stock to punch the larger hearts out. I used leftover scrapbooking paper scraps to make the smaller hearts.
The last embellishment will be the ribbon on the front of the card. This part is easy! Just cut out two lengths of ribbon about 7 - 10 inches long.

Step Four: The fourth step to make valentines day cards like these is to glue all of these pieces together! I started with the heart shaped card. First glue the scrapbook paper heart shape onto the top of the card. It is best to use a glue stick or glue runner to do this.
Next glue the heart shaped card stock card onto the square card stock base. Attach one side of a length of ribbon about 1/2" underneath the right hand side of the heart shaped card securing the ribbon and card with some craft glue.(Make sure it is centered as best as possible.) Let this dry a couple minutes before going on.
Next attach the second length of ribbon to the top fold of the right hand side of the heart shaped card stock. If you want to add a little extra flair you can secure a second layer of scrapbook paper onto the inside flap of the card to cover where this length of ribbon is attached. Now attach the inside text heart to the heart card and let this dry.
To top off the card use a glue stick to decorate the front of the card with little heart paper punch-outs. I also used a metallic glitter pen to color in the hearts on the font I used across the top of the card.

Once everything is all glued onto the card and dried you can tie the card shut with a little bow and trim off any unwanted edges of ribbon and your done!

More Ideas and tips to make valentines day cards...

* make valentines cards using some glitter on the font across the top of the card. Take a small brush and fill in the hearts with glue then dust with glitter.
* dust some of the heart paper punches with glitter to attach to the front of the card.
* instead of scrapbook or wrapping paper, attach fabric or felt to the front of the large Heart shape card stock.
* make valentines day cards using lace to decorate the heart shape. You can glue it to the underside so it peeks out and frames the heart!

See also...

Print free quarter fold Valentines Cards and/or invitations

Valentine's Day printable postcards

Valentine's Day party invitations

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