Homemade Valentines, Fun Printables, and My Re-Vamped Valentine...{What Wendy did Wednesday}

Now that's a title! I really haven't been that creative, more like re-creating to suite my needs. My two little girls have their Pre-K Valentines Party today and we needed treats. Their class is very small-only 6 little munchkins, so I feel okay going a little overboard. But in reality, these weren't that bad. They both went together quickly once I had everything I needed. I am seriously thinking about making more for my bigger girls... 

I know these pop up around Christmas a lot, but thought they would make a fun Valentine.

The tutorial I found listed a 5 pack of gum and a roll of lifesavers to form the body of the train.

After 4 different stores and only being able to find gum sold in the new "slim" packs and lifesavers individually wrapped in a bag, I had to improvise. And you know what, I like how they turned out! And better yet, my girlies think they rock.

I ended up using a snack size kit kat for the base {wrapped in v-day paper} and starbursts "Reds" for the body. Peppermint Swirls for wheels, a lollipop smoke stack, and Palmer's Double Crisp bars for the back compartment. I left everything in it's wrapper except the peppermints-I learned from our candy cane hunt that none of them like peppermints so no need in keeping them edible, and hot glued it together.

Just in case you can't see it, the tag says,

 "I Choo-Choose You, Valentine!" 

I have a serious love affair with vintage valentines going on, if I can find a way to use one I will. I downloaded and saved a bunch of them {google search "free vintage valentine images"}just hoping I'd find a purpose. I ran across a valentine made from puzzle pieces that said,

"You're My Missing Piece"

and new I had found my excuse!

Because I'm not good with photoshop, I probably went about this the hard way, but it worked. I took my downloaded images to my local Walgreens, cropped, edited, added the text, and a border, and then had them printed into 4x6 photos.

I mod podged the photos onto 1/4 inch MDF and then went to work with my saw.

 {I did first draw out a puzzle pattern onto paper then traced it onto the back of each piece as a guide}

I cut each photo into 5 chunky puzzle pieces, then bagged and tagged 'em.

SO CUTE! A fun little vintage puzzle for each of them.

You could easily do this with chipboard or a cereal box to mass produce quickly.

So while I was at Walgreens I decided to print up a few of the free printables that are all over blogger-wonderland of late.

These two came from Sprik Space.

She has so many more printables available for anything you could think of, in several different color combos, and you can print them off in any size you want! And, they're free-amazing! The ABC's are an 8x10 and the Blessings is an 11x14. Such a bang for my buck, and aside from sticking them in a frame-no effort on my part what so ever. Love it!

If you exchanged valentines with me, hurry, close your eyes! Kidding-you can peek...

Just wanted to share my re-vamped project.

{Well one of them anyway-I went from having no exchange buddy due to an odd # to getting two partners due to lost emails! I've never been so happy to have had emails misplaced!}

My gal pal neighbor and I worked on these together. We re-designed a recipe box, made non-matching recipe cards matching, turned an empty frame into a magnetic recipe holder, and made a cute little magnet to hold the recipes in place. We had a riot-hope our new friends enjoy them.

And last just because I think this is hilarious, I share this... 

This makes me wish I had a son! So FUNNY!

You can find instructions on  how this valentine was made at

Craft Monkey

{I might make my girls do this anyway, they too would think it awesome...}

Well, there you go, a few ideas for some last minute Valentines and a good chuckle!

Happy Wednesday and Happy Crafting!