Actually, these cards were a happy accident. The other night, my 11-year-old wanted to do some crafting. We opened up our paper-punch bin, I pulled out an inexpensive set of red note cards I had found in the dollar aisle, and we went to town. An hour later, we had over 15 original handmade cards. We amazed ourselves with the furious creativity of it all! Plus, we had so much fun hanging out making together. So grab that paper punch and let’s give this a whirl!
We did have our favorites though. These sweet kissing elephants quickly won everyone’s heart! The card designs can be simple or complex and still look fabulous. Some of them are my designs, some are my daughter’s. None of them are difficult to recreate, I share the exact tools we used to make them below.
For the cut out parts, we used the other cards in the pack. If we had a design we didn’t like, we would just use it to punch more fun things from it. That way we had coordinating paper. We used either the white side or the red side of the paper as it suited our design. Keep in mind that you don’t need these exact punches! You can make all sorts of fun cards with whatever punches you may have. The point is to enjoy making these last minute, paper-punched valentines!
I love these adorable kissing elephants. To do this design, use the Elephant Craft Punch and the Heart Confetti Punch. To get two elephants facing different ways, punch through both sides of your scrap card. Then, glue the elephants to the card with white sides facing up, trunks together. Punch a set of hearts and glue little heart bubble above their heads.
This adorable butterfly is my daughter’s design. It uses this butterfly punch to get the solid butterfly. Then, four of the mini-hearts from this Scalloped Heart Trim Double Edge Punch are used to adorn the butterflies wings. We just used the heart scraps from the design below!
This little lacy detail at the bottom of the card was made by punching a strip of the Scalloped Heart Trim Double Edge Punch out of one of the scrap cards. Then, glue it to the bottom of this card about 1/2 an inch above the bottom edge. I love how it looks like lace!
This heart pattern design was one of my favorites. For this, I used the Single Heart Punch to punch out 16 hearts. Two of these, I cut in half for the upside down rows and the hearts are laid out in four rows. For the first row, lay out four hearts right side up. For the second row, lay out three hearts upside down, and stagger to the first row of hearts. Place two of the half-hearts upside down at the edges. Then, repeat these two rows for the remainder of the card. To break up the pattern a bit, add one of the small hearts from the Heart Confetti Punch in the third — super cute!
For this simple design, I used the Heart Confetti Punch. I love these three, sweet hearts all glued in a row.
To make this card, my daughter used the Studded Heart Punch to punch through the front side of the card. In other words, nothing to glue here — just a little peek-a-boo heart hole to the inside of the card. She ended up adding a secret message inside, where only “love” showed through when the card was closed.
