Free Printable Lightsaber Valentines

Hello strangers!  I know I haven't blogged in just about forever.  This whole working full time with two kids thing is HARD!  To those of you who have been doing this for a long time or have more than two kids, I am in awe of you. 

We miraculously had a low-key weekend for once so I decided to make Jake's valentines while I had the chance.  Jake is entering into that age where he doesn't want anything too lovey so hearts were definitely out.  He is obsessed with Star Wars right now so I knew it needed to be Star Wars themed.  If you follow my blog then you know that I love sweets just as much as the next person, but since kids get so much candy, I try to do a candy free valentine.  After searching around on google I saw this great idea over at Brassy Apple.  For some reason I couldn't get her printable to open on my computer so I decided to create my own. 

Since I was starting from scratch I found this great free Star Wars font and decided to use that for my wording.  A little bit of playing around with sizing and I had this printable ready to go.

I made three on a sheet and they are just the right size. I printed them up on plain white cardstock, but if you wanted them to be more colorful, colored cardstock would look great too.  Then I used my paper cutter to cut them apart and to make a little slit at the top of the lightsaber hilt. 

I also made another little slit near the right side of the paper to keep the glow bracelet in there more securely.  If you don't have a paper cutter, you could easily do this with an exacto knife or even scissors.  I had Jake sign them all at this point, because it is easier to write on paper that doesn't have glow bracelets on them. 

Then grab a couple of packs of glow bracelets.  I got mine at Michael's but sometimes Target has theirs in the dollar spot too.  Slide a glow bracelet into the slits and you are ready to go.  You can also just make a slit at the lightsaber hilt and use a piece of tape to secure it on the back.  

That's it.  Some cardstock, tape, and glow bracelets and you've got adorable, cheap, candy-free Star Wars themed valentines with nary a heart in sight.  Download the printable here.

Creating Free Digital or Printable Invitations

One of my dearest friends is pregnant with her first little one, and it's a girl!  Living in a house full of boys, I get extra excited at any opportunity to get crafty with my favorite color, PINK!  Her mother-in-law and I are throwing a fun co-ed shower for the happy couple and we decided on a pink and gold Twinkle Twinkle Little Star theme.  I immediately took to Pinterest and have been pinning like crazy.  When it came time for the invites, the parents-to-be decided they wanted an email invitation.  I went to Evite and Paperless Post and while they had some great design choices, they didn't have exactly what I was looking for.  I don't know about you, but once I get an idea in my head, I get stuck on it and nothing else will do.  So, to PicMonkey I went.  If you have never used PicMonkey, get on it.  I absolutely love this site.  It's a great tool for bloggers looking to spice up their blog pics, but it is also perfect for designing your own invitations.  Did I mention that it's FREE!  They do have a Royale membership that has a few extra features, fonts, and overlays, but I've always managed to get by with the free version.

To make this invite I went to PicMonkey and clicked on the Design option.

That will bring you to a page that looks like this:

 

On the left you will see the basic edits available to you.  First you want to pick the color of your card, if you are going with a white card, skip this step.  I wanted pink so under Canvas Color I played around until I got exactly the shade of pink that I wanted.  Once you are happy with the color, click apply.

Next you want to add in your decorations, I decided to keep it simple with just a few gold stars in the top right corner.  From the little menu on the left, click on the butterfly.  This will give you a bunch of little shapes you can use as decorations.

I clicked on the Stars because, um, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Stay with me people.  Of course you can use whatever you want.  Keep in mind that anything with the little crown icon is a Royale feature so you will have to pony up to use those.  I picked a nice basic star and then played around with the color until I got a shade of gold that I was happy with.  Then I copied the heart and resized it to get a few different sizes and rotated some of them to create visual interest.

Finally I clicked on the Tt from the menu on the left and inserted text boxes for all of the text I wanted to enter.  I used the same shade of gold as the stars.  One cool thing to keep in mind with text is that in addition to their fonts (non-Royale options are somewhat limited), you can use any fonts that you have on your own computer, yay!  Once you have it how you want it, click save, name it, and save it to your computer.  I was super excited with how this turned out!

In case you are thinking to yourself, "Wow Lauren, this looks great except for those random black boxes," I just added those on top for this post to protect their privacy.  Once you have the invitation saved to your computer you have a couple of options.  You can have them printed (or print them yourself if you have a good printer) and mail them out.  The parents-to-be wanted their invitations emailed out so I had to find an online invitation service that would let me upload my own design.  After a little bit of searching, I found a site called Celebrations that will allow you to upload your own design.  It's a free service, unless you want it ad free in which case you have to pay to upgrade.  This means that with a little bit of creativity and some time at your computer, you can design, send out, and manage RSVPs for your own custom invitations for FREE! 

Glow Bracelet Valentines & FREE Printable

I love Valentine's Day!  Any holiday centered around love, chocolate, and lots of pink is A-OK in my book.  That being said, I don't necessarily want my little ones having a ton of treats so I'm always looking for cute Valentine ideas that don't have candy.  Jake recently had a glow in the dark birthday party and we gave glow bracelets as favors.  I was looking at the favor tag I had made and realized that with a tiny tweak it would make the perfect Valentine.

I found this great font that looks like a neon sign and made up a cute little Valentine tag. 

Glow Bracelet Valentine Tag Printable

Then I used my silhouette to cut out a neon scalloped edge circle to use as a backing.  If you don't have a silhouette, you could use a large craft punch, scissors, or just skip the backing all together.

Glue the printed Valentine tag onto the neon backing.  Your child can sign their Valentines on the back.

Use a hole punch to make a hole and then thread a black ribbon through it and tie the Valentine onto the glow bracelets.

If you want to make it even more economical, instead of giving each child a tube of glow bracelets, you can just punch a hole on the bottom of the tag too and thread one glow bracelet through the Valentine tag.

Either way you have an adorable, affordable, non-candy Valentine, perfect for your little one to give to their friends.


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