Be My Valentine! Oh wait, I saw Pinterest, I can do better

A story about our first Valentine’s Day in preschool, where I get to revisit the fine tradition of exchanging little Valentine cards.

Read on as I transform from mocking mother to Pinterest panic mode, and handmake all his cards the night before the party. I don’t know what happened.

WHO AM I??

It Started with Simple Cards

When I found out my son’s class was exchanging cards, I marched myself right to the drugstore and got a box of Lightning McQueen cards with stickers.

OK, first thing I really did was look for them on Amazon and saw that they were $13 and figured that can’t be right. So then I took myself to the store and found out they were really only $2.50. Talk about a convenience charge.

I thought the Cars ones were pretty fancy since they came with stickers. Then I got online and saw other people posting their last-minute homemade valentine cards. I laughed and smugly thought, “Ha! Just drive your butt to the drugstore like I did.”

Next Came Assembling the Cards

So I got home, dumped out the cards and after separating the cards, separating the stickers, sliding each sticker into its tiny sticker slot, writing the “To and From” and then folding each card over, then sealing them with a little heart sticker, I realized I could’ve made my own darn cards if I was putting that much work into it. And they’d be way better than these dinky little things I’m sending my kid to school with.

Dammit. Those Pinterest moms are onto something.

I figured I’m just lucky he’s too young to be embarrassed and probably won’t remember any of this. So I packed up his sad little cards and put them in his school bag.

I made plans to be all on it next year with fancy cards, and made myself a Pinterest board: Fun Handmade Valentine Cards for Kids

Then Pinterest Got to Me

And then it started bugging me. I started thinking, you can do better. You have the resources. Why not just whip up some cards? There’s only seven kids in the whole class anyway!

So, I ended up using the template on this blog for Race Car Valentine’s Day Cards because I happen to have a ton of spare cars (I got a box of 100 off Amazon) and cardstock. I didn’t have the fancy washi tape (I don’t even know WTF washi tape is) but I did have some Scotch tape and that worked just fine. I even added every kid’s name to the cards. I’m pretty darn happy with myself:

Now my son is ready for his party with cool handmade Valentine cards and I feel like some kind of crafty Super Mom, lol.

P.S. – I also now know what washi tape is, and I feel like I need to get some. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it but seems like I may run across it on Pinterest again.

2025 Follow-up: I have continued the tradition of handmaking his cards every year! I try to stick to non-candy cards because he always comes home with a bunch of sweets already.

Handmade Valentine Card ideas from past years:

DIY Glow Stick Valentine Cards for Kids Printable – Geek Mamas

Two Easy Ways to Make Play-Doh Valentines – Geek Mamas