Valentine’s Day Cards

Pretty much anyone can pop out to the shops to buy a card for someone. Never mind the specialist cards shops, all major supermarkets and even small village shops have a display of greetings card for every occasion. But how much more personal can it get than to give someone you love a handmade card for Valentine’s Day? A gorgeous handcrafted card with your own special message inside has to rank as something special.

In order to help you and provide that nudge of inspiration, we have searched out some examples you may wish to make for yourself. Or these can be used as a starting point from which to travel off in your own direction.

The video below shows you how to make a straightforward card. You will need very little in the way of materials so this an easy one to try out if you don’t have “all the gear”. You can always find an inexpensive set of watercolour paints online such as this set of 24 basic colours. Not being a painter or user of watercolours, the presenter’s explanation about why the paint doesn’t bleed into the marked out heart area was new to me and an interesting discovery.

The next tutorial shows how to make a Tic Tac Toe or Noughts and Crosses inspired card. One of the good things about this design is that it’s pretty flexible and can be made with whatever you have lurking in your craft stash. Although, you’ll no doubt really want to use some red paper or cardstock as it’s for Valentine’s Day after all! I really like the way the presenter uses an old cereal box to provide both the template and the backing for the heart embellishments. These are pretty small so would only use a small amount of paper making it ideal for using up any scraps you may have kept in the hope they’ll be useful one day. I hate throwing things away unless they clearly won’t come in handy and thus have plenty of odds and ends kept just “in case”.

This next idea is a pretty simply one you can execute with items you most likely have to hand. And the idea of using birthday candles would, of course, work for birthday cards too. If you find that sticking the candles on the card is challenging due to the rounded nature of the candle, you could always use a vegetable peeler or small knife to give them a slightly flattened side.

Making your own homemade Valentine’s Day cards to go with that perfect store-bought present doesn’t have to be all that intimidating. We’re making it easy for you by providing the ideas—silly puns (“you light up my life” paired with candles; “ … but will also show them just how much you care.

Turn a birthday party prop into a loved one’s bright spot on February 14. All you’ll need to make this homemade Valentine’s Day card is a blank note card, glue, and a felt tip marker. If you don’t have any blank cards on hand, simply fold a piece of construction paper or cardstock, and then get started. Via realsimple.com

This next video shows you how to make a pop up card for your Valentine which requires a few different techniques including quilling. There is no “voiceover” giving instructions on this particular video but all steps are very clearly demonstrated. The whole thing takes around 11 and a half minutes to watch.

For our final offering today, we think this pinwheel card looks gorgeous and hope you do too. It’s made using a die cutting technique and features other techniques such as embossing. You may like to have a go at this yourself, or perhaps use it as inspiration for your own project. The materials for this particular card are set out below the video.