Class Valentines are always a thing I don’t plan well. It comes around ever year at the same time, but I still am surprised when it comes around again.
Wanting to do something not immediately destined for the recycling bin, we opted to make buttons for each of my kids to give out and with several Maker Spaces in the area, we had our pick of where to make it happen.
First, I gave each kid a piece of paper with supplies to make their design.
My eldest made some Minecraft drawings, my middle some cats and my youngest some Among Us. Then, I took cell phone pictures of each picture, cropping each photo for one image only.
Going to the library website, I was able to download the button template in Publisher. I then made a file for each kid to be able to print out a sheet of button shapes with their designs (needing over 50 buttons for each kid in their activities, we weren’t going to draw them all by hand).
At the Maker Space, we used the circle cutter to cut out each image and then assemble the buttons. Each kid was helping in the various parts of the process. The paper cutting, the assembly line of button parts and the actual crimping of the finished product were all handled by my kids with supervision.
200 buttons and $20 later, we had personalized, unique Valentines! The best part of this tale is we completed everything the day BEFORE Valentine’s Day… at least it wasn’t the morning of! Remember this idea the next time your kid(s) needs unique, quick and cost-effective classroom goodies.
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