Cool School Valentines

Between technical difficulties and a whirlwind week of organization/rearranging furniture, thanks to my generous SILs who are here helping a poor pregnant woman, I have not been able to pick my finalists, yet, for my party party. There are a lot of great parties to choose from. I think I have visited them all, but my browser keeps kicking me off-line when I try to leave comments. I will prevail, though, just give me a day or two.

In the meantime, I am realizing that Valentine's Day is sneaking up on me, and thought you might be searching for creative Valentines your kids can give to their friends at school. Of course, it seems like my kids are the only ones giving homemade ones in their classes each year, so maybe you and the rest of the world are just going to go to the store and buy the High School Musical, or Batman Valentines. I'm sure that is much easier than what I do, but I can't bring myself to do it. Maybe if I try it one of these years, I'll get the picture and give up this insanity, but in the meantime...

...I'm trying to talk my son into doing this--my favorite new creative valentine idea! My friend, Amy, did this last year for her daughter. I'm not sure how long it will take to get the right photo, but it is so cute, and the assembly can't take too long! If your school doesn't allow sweets, Amy suggested sliding a flower or a pencil in where the lollipop would go.

My 4th grader has already started work on her i-pod valentines (the ones with the sweetarts and reese's cups that were all over the blogosphere last year). But those are a ton of assembly, so I told her it had to be mostly her project (not mine!)

The ones we did last year were a bit of work, but turned out pretty cute:

You can read all about what we did here. And as crazy as it was, I think I made a memory with my daughter, staying up late to assemble these. She is developing her own insanity, for sure!

(The cool version for my son's class):

The year before, we made these, and you can finds some similar printables that make this idea a bit easier:

But if you are feeling ambitious or crafty, you might want to try this "a-maze-ing" valentine from Howdoesshe.com (via UCreate).

Super cute! Probably a bit of work, though.

...Or you could just go buy the Batman valentines at the store. "Ka-POW, Valentine!"