kids valentine crafts

Here is my set of DIY Valentines for kids to help avoid the sugar rush during Valentine’s days.

Somehow Valentine’s day at school these days has turned into Halloween for my kids. It is no longer about the sentiment anymore and all about the candy. There have been a couple of times when the kids came back from school with more candy on Valentine’s day than on Halloween.

The thing is, Valentine’s day doesn’t have to be about candy. You can make it sweet in many other ways.

This year, I’ve decided to just not partake in this chaos by not sending my kids to school with pounds of sugary treats.

These printable and SVG templates for these kids valentines day crafts are all FREE and available in my resource library.

Materials for DIY Kids Valentine’s Cards

Assorted Starter Pack – Basic assorted colors, great starter pack, perfect weight for most papercraft projects
Cricut Joy Insert Card Packs – You don’t have to use these with the Cricut Joy, they are nice material kids for cardmaking.
Cardstock Warehouse Brand on Amazon – I love the quality of all the matte-colored cardstock with Cardstock Warehouse. It is my go-to brand for individual matte colors that I might need
Poptone Assorted Variety Pack – This is the perfect peppy assortment of colors of heavy cardstock. It’s a heavy cardstock assortment with colors I actually use frequently for cardmaking.
Seasonal Assorted Variety Pack – This is a slight variation on the Poptone assortment and has a quite few neutrals that complement almost any accent color.
Stardream Metallics Line – For paper crafts, the Stardream line is the go-to for a metallic shimmer finish. It is the perfect sheen to make any project pop. The core is also colored is which hard to find for metallic paper.

Cutting Machine – I use a Cricut. Check out my recommendations for Cricut machines and accessories for beginners for more info.

valentine art and craft ideas for preschoolers

There’s lots of variation you can do on these base craft templates. Make them out of all sorts of cardstock or even recycled paper. My favorite is to reuse grocery bags. Old magazines and newspapers also work for some of these.

I’m going to preface this by saying this project is a labor of love. If you want to just get a bunch of Valentines for your child’s first-grade class done, just buy a pack of ready-made ones. But my son was super excited to have “cool” valentines to share with his classmates and forgot it didn’t include candy.

That said, I did try to optimize my designs so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

Cricut Kids Valentines Crafts

If you are using your Cricut to make these, I find the Print and Cut functionality to be super confusing these days in Design Space.

The TicTacToe card is probably the most complex out of all of these to make especially if you are trying to Print then Cut.

The standard way to Print and cut is to Select everything and then “Flatten”. (Flatten attaches everything selected and prints it)

The problem is this it then prints the cut lines where the crayons slot in.

What you need to do is change the Fill of the words and grid to “Print” but make sure the slot lines remain as “Cut” only.

Then after this is done, you need to “Attach” all the pieces.

I tried to leave the graphics saved in the most flexible format for my free template.

But this will take some mental gymnastics on the first try.

You can do it!

Valentines CRAFTS FOR PRESCHOOLERS

Interested in other projects to entertain your little one this Valentine’s Day? I have a lot in my collection. Check out these cute heart art and animal crafts.