We made some gocco print notecards with one of my daughter’s drawings. I find it frustrating that I can rarely get a good screen impression on these. The screens are so expensive that I hate to try again. My tracing probably needed thicker lines. I’m amazed at all the Etsy sellers who have great gocco screenprints. I think I’d like to learn how to make real screenprints sometime soon.
Attention last-minute crafters: If you or your kid is just not in the crafty Valentine’s Day spirit, here are some quick printable cards. Yep, the lovebirds design again. Just print on card stock, cut and go. I made a space at the bottom for the kid’s name.
And if those don’t tickle your fancy, here are some others:
Sweetheart Cards from Bunny Cakes.
Zebra Cards from Bunny Cakes.
Owl Cards from Living Locurto.
Animals from Secret Agent Josephine.
Snail Lollipop Cards from Zakka Life.
Je t’aime Cards from inside a black apple.
Giddyup from Cottage Industrialist.
Butterfly Lollipop Cards from Skip to My Lou.
Vintage Valentine Sheet from Altered Stuff.
Printable Cards from Maquette.
Indie Fixx has a great list of printable valentines that are available for purchase.
Today’s project is not a recycled one, but will still help you avoid buying an impersonal, mass-produced Valentine’s Day card.
Simply print the template below on card stock and cut out the birds with a craft knife. You can leave it as is, or you could glue fabric or paper in the opening as I did in the photo below. Use spray adhesive to adhere your fabric or paper by carefully spraying the inside of the card and laying the fabric or paper down. For thin cotton fabrics, you can use an iron-on interfacing to give them some heft. Then cut a half-sheet of card stock and glue to the inside to cover the back of your fabric or paper. I think this template would also work well for an appliqué project. You might even see it as a machine embroidery design in my shop later this week!
Be sure to check out all of my recycled Valentine’s Day projects here. You can also find some nice projects at Maya Made. Add your Valentine’s projects to the Make it Monday Flickr pool.
Here are a couple of ideas for recycled Valentine’s Day cards. I’m going to try to post a new idea each day this week. So much better to make something from materials found around the house rather than buy a card at the store.
This card is made from an old manila folder and vintage fabric. I used a bit of interfacing to stiffen the fabric and glued it on with spray adhesive before sewing a zig-zag stitch around the edge.
And here’s one for the kids. A lacing card made from a cereal box. We simply cut the box, painted it with acrylic paints, poked holes and laced it with yarn. Good exercise for fine motor skills and fun to boot. The center heart is a scrap from an old embroidery pattern book.
Great last-minute toys. We’re all cutting back, right? So here are some links to free paper toy downloads. I suppose that it’s more environmentally friendly to print paper toys at home rather than buy some plastic junk from China.
I will admit that there will be a Hannah Montana microphone under our tree this year. We’re not totally sure how our four-year-old discovered Hannah Montana, but she did and she loves her. I guess it could be worse. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make my kids happy without making myself vomit. When I told my older daughter that we were going shopping for a birthday present for her sister she asked if they had plastic toys at the store (they did not). My kids will probably grow up to have some strange plastic toy fetish.
Elves from Macula.
Vintage Lacing Cards from Bella Dia.
Paper Animals from The Toymaker.
Pink by Jules from Ready Mech.
Italian Villa from Print-n-Play Toys.
Paper Toys has a strange assortment of stuff including Wrigley Field, Bill Gates’ house and the Taj Mahal.
Plus this great vintage set from Agence Eureka on Flickr.
