Custom photo valentines have become a tradition at our house–. You can view past years here and here. I didn’t post from 2010 so I’m going to show that one later in this post. Anyway, this year I streamlined the girls’ classroom cards by using the same concept. So here’s what we did:
Here is the original picture:
As you can see, the background (my kitchen wall), although white, looked more gray. Which is fine, but when I went to place the text, I didn’t have enough “white space” to make a nice composition. So I dodged the background to bright white in Photoshop and extended it out on the right to make the text fit better. I used the same concept for London’s. (Let’s be clear: the older they get, the more say they have in wardrobe and hairstyling.)
I also wanted them to get their hands on these too, to have some fine motor skill development and such. After printed them out six to a page at kinko’s (excuse me, Fedex Office), the girls’ helped me cut them out and mount them on valentine-themed paper:
The first year we started this process, I used a concept I got from Martha Stewart. Here is the starting image:
London (age 4 then) placed the little heart stickers on the front, and wrote her name on the back. Here is the finished product:
Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope this gives you some inspiration for your kids’ valentines!
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