A mom and tot Valentine project

Last year I bought vintage Valentines for Little Bug to give to his cousins, grandma, and a couple of friends.  This year I wanted to do some handmade Valentines so I went searching for a toddler friendly Valentine project.  I knew I wanted to do something with potato stamps.  In my searching I came across a really cute book page garland idea and a stamping project using a toilet paper roll.  I decided to combine the two homemade stamps in a garland project.  I happened to have an old hardcover copy of Charles Dickens stories that I removed some of the pages from for a wedding project, (see my blog post here .)  I hate to waste a book so was glad to have another project that would utilize more of the pages.

The first step was to make our stamps.

Potato stamps are super simple, all you really need is a potato, a knife, and a stamping pad or some ink.  I made two different potato hearts, one using a cookie cutter and one freehand with a knife.

Toilet paper roll stamps are even easier to make.  Just take an empty cardboard roll and bend it to form a heart!

For the toilet paper stamps we used regular acrylic craft paint as our “ink” and for the potato stamps we used a rubber-stamping-type ink pad.  The potatoes are absorbent so they work really well with a stamping pad, (you could also use india ink,) the toilet paper roll on the other hand does not work well with a stamping pad.

Once the stamps were made I removed several pages from my book, set out the inks and let Bug go to town.

We let the pages dry for a bit and then I cut them all into heart shapes.  I cut them with regular paper scissors and then once I had a heart I went over the edges with some fancy pattern scissors.  I then used a hole punch to put holes in each heart and strung them on some thin satin ribbon.

Six big hearts and two small spacers was enough to make garland for our mantle.   I had Bug stamp more pages and we used those to create individual valentines to send to family and friends.  I sent most of them out before taking photos of them but here’s a couple.  (Bug stamped the outside of the hearts with the potatoes and TP roll, and I did the inside.)

Bug’s stamping

Girl Valentine

Boy Valentine

(The little planes are removable, I attached them with some Elmer’s sticky tack so they could be removed by the recipient.)

Here’s a list of materials you will need to do the garland project;

• Book Pages
• Potato (one potato cut in half will make two stamps)
• Cookie Cutter (optional)
• Empty Toilet Paper Roll
• Stamp Ink Pad (or India Ink)
• Paint
• Knife or Xacto
• Scissors
• Decorative Scissors (optional)
• Hole Punch
• Ribbon, Twine, or Yarn

For the Valentines you’ll need all of the above, plus some decorative paper or ephemera, glue, and envelopes.  You can hand write your message or if you’re like me and you don’t trust your handwriting, you can use your computer to type the message, print it, cut it out, and glue it in.

Happy Crafting!