Every year I’m at a loss for something fun to do for School Valentines, so I usually buy a generic box off of the shelf. The valentines that include candy are especially popular, but since I’d love it if Valentine’s Day did not become Halloween #2, I wanted to create a fun Valentine sans the sugar-loaded craziness.
For those of you who love the sugar-loaded craziness that comes with candy valentines, then we salute your bravery. For everyone else, we created a nature inspired Valentine that our kids and yours will be so excited to give. (Your kids’ teacher wanted me to tell you, “thank you.”)
First, we found these adorable bug finger puppets. (This post does contain affiliate links.)
Beth Anne and I know our limitations, and graphic designers we are not, so we asked a friend to help. Hadassah owns an Etsy shop called WhimsicalWallsArt. We knew she would be the perfect person to help, and her designs are brilliant! Since we are offering these as free printables, (here, here, and here) you get the benefit of hiring a graphic designer for your kids’ valentines! Again, you’re so very welcome. It was our pleasure!
Making these valentines is super easy once you have all of your supplies together. We bought some kraft paper in a thick card-stock weight to print the designs on. The free printables give you two to a page. Once they are printed, we just loosely cut around the edge of the design and the girls wrote their names at the bottom of each Valentine.
Next, we just used some Elmer’s Glue-All to add a dollop of glue where we wanted our finger puppets to go. We pressed the finger puppets into the glue, and we were all done! The glue does take an hour or more to dry, but once dry it holds the finger puppets firmly in place. When the lucky recipients of these adorable valentines are ready to use their finger puppets, they tear off of the paper very easily and the glue flakes right off of the puppet. Easy peasy. No sugar. No craziness. Just fun.
All three of the kids were super excited about the finger puppets. They wanted to keep them all, and later Lilly put on a show for us with her buggy finger friends! I love that this project was nature inspired fun for the kids and I to do together, plus I have Valentine’s Day covered well in advance! What cute projects are you working on for this Valentine’s Day? We’d love to hear about them! And don’t forget to Pin this project to your Valentine’s Board!
Much buggy love,
