Valentine's Day Deliveries

This year I wanted to start a new tradition; handmade Valentine cards and goodies, and delivering them on V Day. It was super fun, but I'll be glad when AB is older and can add her own sweet little twist to them. This year they were Mommy designed and Mommy created. It was still fun.

I love, love, love personalized Valentine's. Don't get me wrong, the store bought ones are cute - but there's nothing like heart doilies and a bunch of red, pink, purple and white on a card! I found this package of a bunch of die cut hearts, flowers, stars, tags and circles at hobby lobby. It was only $5.00 for a whole bunch of decorative die cuts! I hadn't ever used anything like this before, but for this craft, it was an excellent purchase! Here is what the package looked like. It was filled with different shapes!

I removed all of them from the package and sorted them by shape (that's the Kindergarten teacher in me). It was so much easier to use after they were sorted.

Surprisingly enough, the best purchase I made was for a DOLLAR! I found this 8 pack of plain color and metallic paper in the dollar bins at Target. This is what I used for the cards.

Some of the finished products.

I knew I wanted AB to be able to give her friends a treat to go with the cards, but I didn't want to do the same 'ol box of chocolates, and wanted to keep it reasonable. So, I bought this awesome silicone heart-shaped cupcake/cookie/brownie pan at Hobby Lobby! So, we made brownies for our friends.

To decorate it, I cut out little heart-shaped Annabelles. Lol!

At Hobby Lobby, I also bought toothpicks with hearts on the end. One side said, "Love, Annabelle." The other side was...

Her face! Haha. Cracks me up! We stuck the toothpicks in the middle of the brownies!

I wrapped the brownies in cellophane and tied it up with ribbon. I found sacks to match the toothpick hearts at Hobby Lobby, too. By the way, have I mentioned I heart Hobby Lobby?

I thought this was so cute, I got this idea from Martha Stewart.com. To seal the bag, decorate a heart and glue it to a clothespin. The clothespin keeps the bag closed.

The goody bags all fixed up and ready to be delivered. AB and I had fun running around and delivering them!

If there's one thing I want to instill in Annabelle, it's the reason for every day, every occasion and every holiday - our loving Father. Especially on a day that is about love...let's give credit to the one who has the greatest and most unconditional love of all. We had to include His word on our cards. I hope it sticks with her always:

"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him." 1 John 4:16

Happy Valentine's Day to all our friends and family!