hand made paper valentines

In the end, we ended up not adding anything to our hand made paper.  We thought of gluing on additional paper shapes, adding flowers, stickers or ribbons or even a poem but most of the children in Naiya's kindergarten don't read and we liked the simplicity of the heart inlaid in the paper without any bling.

Tonight before bed I told the story of the Valentine Sparrow to prepare for the joy of the class exchange in the morning.
Additionally, for the past few days I've been telling the story of The Valentine Baker of Pink and his magical heart shaped cakes.  This sweet tale is from Juniper Tree Puppetry and Suzanne Down's most recent monthly newsletter (which I enthusiastically encourage all those interested in seasonal story-telling to join).  We loved this story as read and also worked it out as a little puppet show.  Mostly I was using it as preparation to transition out of "gifting" our daughter for every little holiday.  (I do so love to make things but even our hand-mades are getting to be too numerous.)  Instead of making her yet another special holiday craft then, tomorrows "gift" will just be a nice spice cake in the shape of a heart that our whole family can enjoy as a Valentine treat together.