Now that it is only a week away from Valentine's Day, I have this song running through my head.  I used to sing it with my 4th graders this time of year, and it always gets me in the mood to make Valentines.  As you know, I really like Lily to make her Valentines – it is so cheap, easy, and fun, and they come out looking so much cuter than the boring store bought ones.  Derek even got in on the fun this time.  (Here's what we did for 2008 and 2009)

This year, I got my idea from a blog that I found in my wanderings on the computer last week, and for the life of me, I can't remember whose it was, and so I cannot give credit where credit is due.  Just know that she was awesome to come up with this idea, and the Valentine's turned out adorable :).

First, I took pictures of the kids, wrote on them in Picassa, and ordered the pics.  Once they came, I slit two holes in the hand, like so:

Then  you can slide a sucker into the hole so it looks like they are handing it to you.  Since most of our Valentines are mailed to cousins and such, I had the kids color pictures of flowers or balloons to replace the suckers on the ones being mailed.  (Lily drew both the flowers and the balloons.)

Then we put them all together.  Here is Lily's school version and her one to send away:

And got them ready to send out.  I am very happy with how they turned out, and the kids loved them!