Valentine's Day Cards

After my post about having to make 62 Valentine's Day cards for my kids, which after a re-count is really 64, Ter left a comment that I should have the kids do them, and I totally agree. However, I have a major character flaw that prevents that from happening. And when I say "a major character flaw" I do not mean to imply that I have only one, there are many others, too. Anyway the character flaw I'm talking about right now is that I am a control freak.

The kids did help me do their Valentine's Day cards, but I did the majority of the work. There are two reasons for that: (1) I'm a control freak and like to have control over things like that (which I am trying to overcome in situations like this), (2) some of the things to do with these cards are just too hard for them to do right (I know this still relates back to Reason No. 1).

Amaya's cards aren't done yet because she doesn't need them until tomorrow. I've only made one sample, which Amaya is going to give to my mom today. Her cards require cutting, gluing, sticking and writing. She can wield a pair of child scissors and cut gashes in paper, but she can't cut out heart shapes. She can glue pieces of paper together, but not with any kind of precision. I am doing all of the cutting. I am planning on letter her put glue where it needs to be, but I'm going to actually place the pieces where they need to go. I am going to try to give up a little control and let her put the stickers on, but if it starts stressing me too much, I must take over. I know I shouldn't but we'll just have to see how it goes. She can't write so I'll be doing the writing. I have to make 12 of these for school.

Here is what her cards are going to look like. For some reason I couldn't get a picture that wasn't slightly blurry, so in case you can't read what it say on it it says, "You're unforgettable."



Hayden's cards required cutting, drawing, writing and gluing. He can cut, but these hearts need to be perfect or the card isn't going to look like what it's supposed to, so I cut them all out. He didn't care. He drew the face on the front of the cards, but he is a perfectionist, like me, and he had a fit after he did the first one because it didn't look perfect. Finally he relaxed and finished the rest of them. I wrote the saying inside, but he signed his name. I glued the antennas on because if he had done it there would have been more glue on the table, floor, himself and the walls than there would have been on the cards. Even though I probably should have let him do more than I did, he didn't care. He was happy to do what he did and he really loves his cards. We had to make 22 of these for school.

Here's is card. This was the first one so I did draw the face, but he did the rest.

Now for Carson's card. This is the coolest card, but it was also a pain in the ass to make, especially since we had to make 30 of them. This one required precise measuring and cutting, gluing and writing. I started out with the measuring and cutting, and then Carson wanted to help. I knew it wouldn't work out right, so I told him he couldn't. Then he got upset and I felt bad so I let him. I showed him how to measure and cut and he went to work. Later when he gave me the finished pile of measured and cut papers, I could tell that some were so far off that the weren't going to work, so I ended up having to cut a bunch more. Then he made some crucial cuts in all 30 of them, and after he was done and we were ready to start assembling them, I realized they were all wrong. That major screw up was mine. I told him to cut the wrong number of cuts. We had to start over, but we didn't have enough red paper to do them all, so we had to switch to white paper. So that screw up on my part cost us a few hours worth of work. I ended up measuring and cutting all of the new ones, then Carson wrote the message and signed his name. I glued the little hearts on the side. Here is what his card looks like on the front. In case you can't read what it says on the little hearts, it says "Pull."After you grab the hearts and pull, here is what it looks like.

Pictures don't do it justice, so here is a video showing what it does. Since I had to hold the camera under my chin while filming this, thereby not letting me see what I was actually filming, I think it turned out pretty good.

It may not look as cool on this video as it looks in real life, but let me tell you, it's cool. I'm thinking that every kid whose birthday party we go to this year might get a card like this. We'll just use different colors and a different saying. I am excited to see what the kids in Carson's class thought about the card. He was so excited about this card that I hope the kids all thought it was neat.

I have to say that I am totally not a crafty person, but I thought it would be fun for the kids (me) to make cards this year instead of buying the same old Spiderman or Pokemon cards. It was a lot of fun making them, and it would have been funner if I had planned ahead of time so I didn't have to stay up until 1:00 a.m. for two nights in a row making them. Also, next time I will try to give up the control a little and let the kids do more.