BEST Valentines!

Hello fellow QuicKutz fans! My name is Shaunte Wadley, and I have been on the design team for QuicKutz since 2007.

My husband and I have five children, and I feel (along with everyone else) that my time and budget are pretty limited these days! I am excited to share with you a few cost-effective Valentine ideas. Assembling these projects forced me to get a jump-start on Valentine’s Day preparations. (Almost incomprehensible to be ready early for a holiday!)

Four of my five kids are in elementary school, so I wanted to come up with inexpensive valentines for them to hand out to their classmates. Bonus if they can help me crank them out assembly-line style. And double bonus that I can further justify the dies already in my stash!

I came up with several ideas.

The first one is very traditional:

A cute tag that can be tied to any treat of your choice.

Dies used:
tag REV-0015
nesting hearts CC-HEARTS-01
heart mini RS-0400

And then I thought “Wadley, you can do better than this…”

I challenged myself to make some non-traditional valentines using the dies I already have. You know, those dies that you have in your stash that don’t get enough love. (Please tell me I am not the only “collector.”)

Do you have the Revolution nameplate dies? There are two: the oval and the rectangle.
Well, guess what? They are a perfect fit for threading onto a sucker stick! I was pretty happy about that discovery, especially when I can pick up a gigantic bag of Tootsie Pops at Costco and be done with the treats for my kids’ classes!

Let me show you.

Here is a close-up of the oval nameplate with the sucker inserted:

See how the sucker stick pokes through the pre-made holes? So easy! I love easy.

Here are some ideas I came up with to incorporate the sucker stick idea for the kids:

Dies used:

nameplate REV-0004

nameplate REV-0005

dinosaur (triceratops) RS-0635

heart mini RS-0400
fish RS-0372

I tried to go fairly gender neutral.

Here is another one. My ten year old son loved this one:

Dies used:

nameplate REV-0004

heart mini RS-0400
pirate skull KS-0780

And one for my oldest son who is in junior high and thinks he’s too cool for school.

Dies used:
REV-0005
male/female icons KS-0539

heart mini RS-0400

Speaking of my oldest son, he has a girlfriend this year! Did I mention that he is in junior high? He is THIRTEEN! Shouldn’t girls still have cooties at thirteen? Sigh… I feel too young for this.

I made him a “special” valentine for her. Cause I am giving like that…

Here it is:

In case you can’t see the tag, it reads:

We make a great “pear”, even though we can’t “date.”

Just a friendly reminder to them, and yes, it is tied to a bag of DATES. Yummy, yummy dates. I am thinking that will go over well. Very romantic. (snicker)

The “pear” idea could also be used for Grand”pear”ents if you exchange valentines with extended family.

Dies used:

tag REV-0015
pears REV-0208-S

heart mini RS-0400

If you are looking for a valentine idea for your significant other, you can whip one of these up:

We’re a perfect “Match.”

Of course you can also add something along the lines of “you strike me as being hot” or something else about hearts burning…but since this is a family-friendly site, I’m not going there.

My favorite thing about the nesting label dies is when they’re folded in half—they fit perfectly as a treat bag topper! I have used this idea for almost every holiday.

Dies used:

nesting label CC-SHAPE-3-028
match RS-0693

I have some friends this year who are still hanging onto New Year’s Resolutions and are on fitness kicks. I am eating their chocolate myself, and giving them this:

This door hanger die fits perfectly on a bottled water. I love it!

Dies used:
scale REV-0302
door knob hanger CC-shape-082-2

rollerskate skinnimini complete alphabet 4X8-ROLLERSK-SC

Do you want to see the valentine my 11 year-old son loved? He is in 6th grade. The irony here is that I have to remind him every day to wear deodorant. His valentine is so very “him.”

Dies used:

air freshener CC-SHAPE-073-2
heart (curl) RS-0047

My girls fell in love with this one:

A simple flower, and leaf set.

The flower already has a hole in the center for the sucker to stick through.

I computer generated a simple “Happy Valentine’s Day” and adhered that to one of the leaves. The other leaf is where the girls will sign their names. So simple.

Here is a close-up of the leaves:

Dies used:

flower REV-0172

leaves REV-0170

The kids were excited about making their own valentines. I was excited about the savings, and excited to use up part of my scrapbooking stash. Win/win.

Thanks for taking a look. Hopefully this will inspire you to look at your dies a little differently, and start creating your own valentines!