Love me some Pinterest!  The other day I was checking out some new pins and I saw some really cute valentine boxes for the classroom.  Being late to the party, or in other words, waiting until the last minute to think about valentine bags, I didn’t have time to collect boxes and cover them in red paper.  I had to improvise with what I had.

Valentine Bags 2014 version

This is what I did.  I used my iPad to take a picture of each child’s face from the shoulders up.  I printed them on card stock.  I cut each of them out.

Our school orders us white 6″x12″ bakery bags.  I folded down the top edge about an inch (it helps if you stretch the bag top out as you fold) and then folded it again.  This keeps the bag open and gives it some stability.

I stapled each head to the back of the bag.  Then I gave each child a set of  valentine arms to cut out.  I had a variety of ethnic tones available.  After the arms were cut out I stapled each one to the back of the bag facing forward.  I creased where the hand would come over to the front of the bag to keep them from pulling the arm too tight across the side of the bag.

Each child glued down a big heart on the front of the bag and then glued down the hands over the heart.

They turned out really cute and the heavier heads has helped them to stay upright instead of toppling over.

I’ve seen many valentine bags torn into like it was Christmas morning.  We make Valentine Memory Books for them to glue their valentines in.  It makes them actually look at who gave it to them.  The book has enough blank white pages in it for each valentine.  If they get a candy, then they just write about it.

Valentine Memory Book

And that’s a pin!