Can’t believe Valentine’s Day is Friday! February is flying by! Here are a few things I had fun with his weekend.  The little blackboard Valentine is super quick once you gather your supplies!  Almost 30 years ago our oldest son’s kindergarten teacher made these little gems for each of her students, and I still have his. I decided to try using the pinecone frame idea from my “Family Vacation in the Tetons” post to change it up a bit, too.

The bookmarks are something I made for my students last year for Valentine’s Day!  These are a sweet keepsake and oh so quick! How nice to open a book with one of these bookmarks holding your place.

Blackboard Valentines

Supplies:
Popsicle sticks (4per frame)
Black card stock or construction paper
White pencil
Thin red satin ribbon or jute or something else for hanging
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Red permanent marker (optional)

Lay popsicle sticks out to form a frame.  Mine are placed about 3/4″ up each stick (see photo). Glue with hot glue.

Next cut black paper to fit the back side of frame and glue in place with hot glue.  You will only put glue on the two sticks (see photo).

Using a white colored pencil write the sweet little math problem:
2 sweet
+ 2 be    
4 gotten

Now you can glue ribbon on from the back. I cut a 5″ piece of ribbon for mine. Then I used a red marker and wrote a little phrase at the top of the frame, and if you like you can sign it at the bottom.



Bookmarks

Supplies:
Card stock in colors of your choice
Photos
Scrap book paper or other decorative paper
Glue stick
Markers and/or pens

Gather or print your photos.  I printed mine in wallet size and trimmed them to 2 1/4″ wide; length varied.  If you are able to print passport size photos (2″x2″) they work really well.

My bookmarks are 2 1/2″x6″. Last year I purchased plain white bookmarks at a craft store that were 2″x6″ and came in a pack of 24. They worked perfectly with the passport photo size. Today I just used what I had on hand and made it work.

The scrapbook paper I used is very sweet with a vintage valentine collage that I cut apart. I love the various greetings!

Once you have everything trimmed to size you can begin to create your own bookmarks, enhancing them to your liking!

If you have access to a laminator it will help your bookmarks hold up with use.

Do what you love, and love what you do!  Happy Valentine’s Day!