The Imperfectly Perfect Housewife: Valentines Presents for School

After splurging out on Christmas gifts for the teachers at my daughter's school and spending more than I'd care to admit to my husband, last year, when shopping for Valentines gifts for my children's classmates and teachers yesterday, I made a conscious effort to be budget friendly.

Last year I made Heart shaped Chocolate lollipops which were thrifty, adorable yet took a lot of time. Time is something that I don't have this year due to being a full time student. So I popped into Walmart last night and looked for some quick and easy ideas!

We yet again have a "Snow day" and schools are closed, including mine, so I turned our Valentines gifts into an arts and craft (kill some snow day time) activity and we had a lot of fun with it.

Best part is, we made over 20 mini gifts and cards for all of their classmates and friends and are able to give each teacher in their school a little something all for UNDER $20! You cant beat that! If I do my usual and cant help myself go overboard, I may add a Dunkin Donut card for their actual teachers.... just because I'm an overachiever like that ;) but still this was still a super thrifty idea.

WALMART was my saving grace last night... Having just moved back to suburbia from the city...again, I had forgotten about the genius of this place.... However, I must admit I do miss my NY dolla

r stores where I probably would have found everything for EVEN CHEAPER!!!

I was originally thinking something chocolate for their friends however with the amount of allergies that I know some of their classmates have, I was nervous to go down that path. I then saw boxes of Dum-Dum Lollipops 50 count with Valentine labels included to make your own Bouquets for $2.98 per box. I thought that these would be great, it even said on the box "free of all major allergens". I picked up two boxes and that was the kids sorted.

I originally picked up mugs for each teacher filled with chocolates and coffee but as I picked up 5, then 6, then 7 for their teachers, the "$" amount was wracking up. I thought to myself, Georgia you are totally over-achieving here. It is Valentines day, not a major holiday and it is the sentiment that counts, just a little something will do.

So I put the mugs back on the shelf and found some heart-shaped boxes of chocolates for $1 each. Just a nice little something to say "we appreciate you" on valentines day.

Next was cards, I wasn't really thinking of doing anything for Valentines day this year for them at school, but when the teachers handed out a list of the kids in their classroom with February's newsletter, I thought.... Oh maybe I should!

With time, I would have had the girls make cards from scratch, even just to give them something to do. But again since I didn't have a lot of that, I thought I would just buy a pack of pre-made Valentines Cards, but at $6.98 for a pack of 6.... I couldn't validate the splurge to myself.

So I found (on sale) 12 count packs of blank cards for $2 each (envelopes included) and I picked up a pack of 2 sheets of glittery, pink scrapbook paper for $0.97 and decided we would (half) make our own.

Like I said I wanted to give the girls something to do for the day so I fully involved them in putting everything together.

First we made up the Dum Dum Bouquets. We made a list of all of their friends and Savannah (5) even started to write the labels herself and I dived the pops up into 3 per child, while Sienna (2) made herself busy by picking up the dum dums and constantly asking me when she could have a "pop pop"

* TIP: The Bouquets were not holding with just the label itself so I used tiny, clear hair elastics to hold each bouquet together before sticking each label on and that solved the problem.

Next was working on the cards, we had to turn these blank cards into something Valentines-y
So we started on the envelopes. Last year I made Valentines wrapping paper with Potato Print Hearts so thought this would be fun for the girls to do and they could decorate the envelopes.

I took a potato and my "Pampered chef heart-shaped fruit and cheese cutter" and made two heart shaped printers. I gave each of the girls a paper plate with a dollop of red paint on it and just let them go to town with their potato stamps.

*Tip: I used the shape cutter for the potato print, but last year I simply just cut a heart shape out myself with a knife and it worked just as well.

While the envelopes dried, we worked on the cards. We made a template, drew and cut out 24 hearts out of the pink glittery paper and then glued a heart onto each card, The gluing was Sienna's favourite part.

And Ta-Da we turned our blank assorted cards into

Insta-Valentines cards.

Cute, Right?!

The girls, with my help, wrote them out to each of their friends and teachers, added some pictures and popped them into their beautiful heart, printed envelopes!