We are not big on Valentine's Day. There is no gift giving. No flowers. Stephen and I sometimes use it as an excuse to make a nice dinner but it varies from year to year. I think we have actually only gone out once to celebrate Valentine's, of course it was before we were married.

Last year the boys and I made Valentines for our extended families, great grandparents included! Not to cheapen the beautiful gifts our families received, but I only set the boys down make Valentines one Saturday afternoon because Stephen was fishing for the day. He was fishing two hours away from home with the only set of car keys in his pants pocket! It is appropriate to imagine lots of inappropriate expletives at this point.

The boys have exchanged Valentines with their classmates four times now. I have always crafted homemade Valentines because I can't stand those store bought cards with the latest children's show character--where does that idea even come from? In the past I've scouted Martha Stewart's website for clever ideas, but not this year.  This year I possessed the knowledge of free printables!

Free printables are my absolute most favorite thing about the world of blogging. There are practically thousands of people out there willing to share their crafty ideas for free. For the sheer joy for sharing pretty things. I love it! Mostly because I could never be that crafty myself and I am more than happy to borrow the cool ideas of others.

And for a girl that does give much thought to Valentine's, I embraced this holiday with full force thanks to all these free printables. Even more so than Halloween or Christmas when I also used free printables.

I found the coolest pirate Valentines. We made 26. Stephen cut the felt hearts and I did the sewing. The boys even wrote all the names by themselves with very little help. It sounds cute, but they hated it. Apparently, they are not really hip on handwriting yet. Stephen was also in charge of taping chocolate hearts to each Valentine.









At the same blog I came across this idea, although it didn't pan out. As sad as it is to admit, this project was intended for our extended families. It ended up being too advanced for the boys and we couldn't pull it together. So extended families, take a look at the Valentines you didn't get. Maybe next year.





My office also exchanged Valentines this year, creating yet another opportunity to print pretty unoriginal shit--for free! The original idea called for small paper bags, like the kind a bagel or cookie would come in. I didn't have bags but I came up with a super cool idea--more sewing on paper! Sewing paper is my new favorite thing (next to free printables). I stuffed my homemade paper sewn bags with heart shaped cookies. Total winner.







Oh, but it doesn't stop there. I also printed Stephen a card and candy wrappers for the boys! I know, it is all pretty over the top compared to my usual approach, but it was so much fun. So fun that I can't wait for St. Patrick's Day, which I never celebrate!