I love Valentine's Day. I know Valentines are just silly little pieces of paper, but I've just always just loved them. I think it's because I have such fond memories of Valentine's Day from my childhood. I wasn't exactly popular in elementary school, but on Valentine's Day everyone was nice I got cards from all the other kids. Sure, they didn't have a choice, but as a kid I don't remember being really aware of that fact. (I may have also been in denial...) When I was little we always bought our cards, but these days I've been trying to make homemade ones. (Check out our Valentines past here and here.)
I instantly fell in love with the idea of a silhouette card when I found them at this lovely little shop, but $15.00 for cards for each of us just wasn't in the family budget (as a teacher I need Valentines, too.) I've been feeling a bit braver with photoshop lately, so I thought I'd try to make them myself.
I started by taking a profile picture of each child in front of a plain background. (Think plain white wall with good light and few shadows.) Then, using photoshop, I edited out that background, changed the colors around, and added the text. The thought bubbles, heart and circles were right there in photoshop so all I had to worry about was the placement. I really loved the boarder in the cards on Etsy, and thought the scalloped boarder I found here would do the trick. (You should pop in over there - she's got lots of great free downloads, and even more stuff for paying members.) The boarder is a separate layer in photoshop, so it was a good way for me to tackle learning how to use them. (So easy!) I uploaded the finished images to my favorite photo printing site and, at only ten cents per print, was able to get a class set for less than $3.00 per child. I'm really happy with how they turned out - cute, personal and best of all - homemade.
Are you planning anything interesting for Valentine's Day?
4 comments:
Hello!
This is Mara from Little & the Girl, the designer of your inspiration valentine. I'm very flattered that you liked my design enough to emulate it and also thankful that you linked back to my Etsy shop. I just wanted to clarify that my valentines cost $15 for a custom sheet of six printable valentines that can be printed over and over again and that the $45 you quoted would have been for three separate valentines. xo
I loved the one you did with a picture holding the sucker. I shared that one with several friends who have small kids. Are you getting snow today? Our schools are closed, but we didn't get as much as forcasted yet.....
I saw some things on Pinterest (holy cow so many ideas!) going to be hard to decide!! These are SO CUTE!!
Heidi, Pinterest is addicting, isn't it. I heard it called "fantasy football for girls" the other day. Too funny...
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