Over the Top Valentines

When I was a kid at school, we exchanged little folded cards with cartoon characters on them (like Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, Scooby Doo, GI Joe, Transformers... I can't remember what else was popular then).  Each had a little envelope.  If you were really lucky, you might have a couple envelopes with three or four conversation hearts.  Those were the jackpot.  Nowadays, the cards are still popular, with revised versions of many of the same characters, but almost every one has to come with a piece of candy or a sticker or tattoo--at least!  This year Sweetheart brought home a long tube of bubbles, a bouncy ball, and scratchboard art with his candy.  Belle had six packs of Fun-Dip and more Laffy Taffy than she got from Halloween.  This year, we went over the top with our valentines.  It even tops the woven paper heart pockets with a Tootsie Roll inside that we made last year.  Family Fun magazine gave me the idea to use a photo of your kid giving a giant lollipop, so I went with that idea and made these:

I took pictures of the kids holding a heart shaped cake pan and a cardboard tube, and then used my photo editing software to write on it and check the sizing.  I taped on our crayon hearts (see the last post) over the pans.  I got a bunch of lip glosses for really cheap at an after Christmas sale.  I used an X-Acto knife to cut around Belle's hands and arms and then tape in the lip gloss.   Then they wrote their names with a permanent marker at the top.  It was a fun project for us to do together, and we were all really happy with how they turned out.  It was a lot of effort for a valentine exchange, so I don't if we'll try to match it, but we enjoyed doing it together.  The price was probably a little higher than buying premade cards and candy, but I got a deal on the photo prints and lipgloss, and the crayons were free.