DIY Valentines Ideas for Kids: Cute Ideas from Local Artists

Gather up your ribbon scraps, tissue paper leftover from Christmas gifts, glue, broken jewelry, buttons and creativity to handcraft Valentine’s day crafts. Celebrate with these awesome DIY Valentine’s Day gifts created by local artists. Ideas for crafty, upcycled, folded and even pre-made printables.

Valentine’s Day is sneaking up on us quickly. It feels like I blinked and it was February. So now I need some quick ideas for easy kids Valentines to pass out for three separate classrooms and various age ranges. Luckily we have some rich local resources in the Twin Cities for DIY valentine cards, handmade gifts and treats. If we can’t do full-on homemade valentine cards, I’ve found a few printables that I really like.

Looking for kid-friendly Valentines events? Celebrate Valentines Day at these Family-Friendly Events

Kids DIY Valentines

Who do we head to for art and craft ideas? We have our favorite local artists and studio owners. Whether you want to make valentines at home or would prefer to leave the mess elsewhere, we’ve found these Twin Cities resources for DIY Valentine’s Day crafts.

Non-Toy Gifts – Crafty DIY Valentines

We love Stef of Non-Toy Gifts for valentines (and any craft ideas). She has cute ideas for easy crafts, particularly for younger kids, but older kids may like these ideas for simple DIY classroom valentines as well. With some paint, markers, construction paper, toilet paper rolls, paper plates and googly eyes, you’ll be able to do most of her Valentines.  My pick for this year are her Valentine Unicorns made with paper plates.

ARTrageous Adventures – Upcycled Valentine Bookmarks

A few years ago, Amanda from ARTrageous Adventures shared some great ideas for Making Valentine’s Day A Family Affair. She includes some super simple handmade bookmarks that can be made with things around the house – cardboard from a cereal box (or cardstock), old magazines, scissors and a sharpie marker are all you need.  She also shared instructions for an easy heart magnet and some super easy party favor ideas.

Another year, Amanda showed us how to make this Yarn Heart Valentine Craft.

Leave The Mess Behind at these Local Art Studios

Want to make handmade Valentine’s day gifts that are so much fun without the bother of clean up? Try some of our favorite local studios where you can make Valentine’s Day Crafts without coating your own living room with glitter!

Valentine Printables

No time to create? That’s okay. We’ve found a FREE printable card set, and a couple FREE printable games from creative people around the Twin Cities area:

Pizza & Taco Valentines by Stephen Shaskan

Local author and illustrator, Stephen Shaskan is sharing some fun Pizza and Taco printable Valentines, based on his Pizza and Taco book series. While your on his website, cruise the kid-stuff page for more printable fun. If you really want to get a teacher a great Valentine, give them a classroom book to match the classmate Valentines.

Note: This is our Bookshop.org Stephen Shaskan Store. Bookshop.org is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. Family Fun Twin Cities receives a small commission on books ordered through our link. If you want to find a specific local bookstore to support, find them on this map and they’ll receive the full profit off your order. Otherwise, your order will contribute to an earnings pool that will be evenly distributed among independent bookstores (even those that don’t use Bookshop). Learn more here.

Valentines Day Word Search

For puzzle-loving kids, the ever creative Lisa of Twin Cities Frugal Mom has shared a printable Valentines Day Word Search.

Kindness Fortune Tellers from Doing Good Together

Print these cute little Kindness Cootie Catchers from Doing Good Together. This Minnesota-based national nonprofit works to make volunteering and service, along with daily kindness, easy for every family, and what is move loving than that? Choose between “Kindness Conversations” or “Acts of Kindness” themes.

Homemade Valentines Day Cards

For actual handmade cards, we get a little help from artists at the Center for Book Arts.

Cute Valentines from Origami

Origami is the perfect Valentine’s Day craft for adding a little extra to handmade cards or for making DIY Valentine’s day decorations to string around the house. I really love Origami so I strayed a little from our local sources to bring some of my favorite folded Valentine ideas. However, we start with a Twin Cities based business and a local artist/author:

Cubles

Minnesota dad, Joel Morris, created the company Cubles to help kids make DIY toys from paper and cardboard. We love these because they are 100% Minnesota-designed and made, they are full-recyclable and they teach some basic engineering skills. In fact, you can purchase a classroom pack that comes with lesson plans.

Simple Heart Origami 

Ioana Stoian, Children’s Book Author and Paper Artist designed this simple origami heart diagram. Fold these hearts using paper in candy hearts colors and add your own phrases to make hand-crafted conversation hearts.

Fortune Cookies

We think it would be fun to fold these Origami Fortune Cookies, adding a little Valentine wish in place of the fortune.  Happy Hooligans is not a local blog, but we like the idea anyway.

Favorite Characters

Origami is always a fun DIY Valentine idea – look for some of your kids favorite characters as Origami. One year, I learned to make Pikachu in about an hour. You can learn to do the folds together as you fold Valentines for classmates and then your child will have an easy DIY toy available to them any time.

Search your child’s favorite characters. You can find origami instructions for almost anything. These can even be incorporated into DIY Valentine’s day cards. These can even be incorporated into DIY Valentine’s day cards.

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Inexpensive Non-Candy Valentine Gift Bag Ideas

These inexpensive items could be used when candy and treats are not appropriate for your child’s classroom. If you are not feeling creative, you’ll find plenty of free printable Valentines to pair with each of these gifts.

Pencils

Punch two holes into a cardstock heart and insert the pencil like a cupid arrow. Add a cute saying like, “Looking Sharp”. This would go really good with the Valentines Day Word Search from Twin Cities Frugal Mom!

A Small Box of Crayons

These are a GREAT addition if you only have access to a black and white printer. Make your Valentine a coloring project.

Watercolors

Watercolor paints are just so much fun and at around a $1 a case, it’s not too expensive for a small classroom. “Like a Rainbow, you take some water and make my world colorful.” 

Rulers

These are cheap and easy. Add a tag that says “You Rule!” and you’re done!

Valentines Day Treats from Local Candy Shops

If your school allows candy, a chocolate treat, lollipop or sucker can be a sweet treat. Our Junior Reporter, Andy has gathered a list of his favorite sweet shops for buying fun treats locally. Shops like Candy Land even have bins where you could count out the number of candies you need.

Homemade Valentines Cookies

Anne shared her favorite Easy Sugar Cookies here. These can be adjusted to fit any holiday. They don’t require cookie cutters, but you can choose colors like red and pink for sugar and sprinkles to give them a Valentines feel. Be sure to check your classroom rules, many schools cannot allow homemade treats in the classroom.

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These local artists, writers and shops make Valentines day fun for Minnesota Kids and these easy DIY Valentines ideas should take some of the pressure off of mom and dad. Do you have a favorite locally-designed Valentine idea? We would love to hear it. Share with the community in the comments.