Valentine's Day Cards

I love the entire institution of Valentine’s Day, and while I usually give out some type of candy, I also like to have something sweetly homemade on hand for my family and friends who are avoiding sugar. Once you’ve got the process down, it’ll only take a few minutes to whip out each card, and the time spent will be well worth the results. Happy Valentine’s Day!

You need:

Blank cards. I really love the brown card and envelope set from Recollections, which can be found at Michael’s.
Grey cardstock.
Several colors of crafting tissue paper, which is slightly thicker than regular tissue paper.
Scissors.
Pencil.
Skinny black permanent marker.

Step One

For the elephant, I first created a stencil by drawing and then cutting out the silhouette. If your drawing skills aren’t as skilled as you’d like, you can use one of the many awesome silhouette images online. I also created a heart stencil so that my balloons were uniform, but you can just wing them if you’d like.

Step Two

Trace your stencils onto the coordinating cardstock and tissue paper. Cut out each shape - you should have one elephant and eleven hearts for each card. Tip: save scraps for future projects in a Ziploc bag or envelope.

Step Three

This step is both the easiest and the quickest. Glue the elephant silhouette and heart balloons onto your blank card. I overlapped the hearts a bit to give the impression of a bunch of floating balloons.

Step Four

The last step is to draw the balloon strings. Be careful to move the marker quickly and avoid lingering in one spot – if you do, it’ll look uneven and splotchy. I also added a small blue bow just above the elephant's trunk, but it looks just as cute without.