ALT-3 How to Write your own Valentines Day Card
From the makeshift to the modern, there are several inventive and heart-capturing ways to make your own Valentine's Day card:
1. The old-fashioned way:
This approach is very elementary, but its simplicity is very romantic.
You will need:
Colored construction paperScissorsA pen or pencilGlue or two-sided tapeCrayons or markers
There are several variations of this card. I will describe two of them.
Card #1
1. Choose the color of construction paper that you would like to use. Red and pink are the colors most commonly associated with Valentine's Day, but if your sweetie is not partial to these colors, be creative. There are a myriad of colors to choose from.2. Fold your construction paper in half neatly.3. Make sure that your folded card is positioned so that the fold is on the left and your card can open from left to right.4. With your pen or pencil and a very steady hand, draw half a heart. Start at the top of your fold and work downward, ensuring that your half-heart is large enough to cover most of the half-sheet of paper and long enough to be cut out.5. With your scissors, carefully cut along the line of the half-heart that you just drew.6. Open your card. What appears should be an image of a whole heart-half on one side of your card and half on the other.7. Using your markers or crayons, write your love note or message on any available free space inside the card. Be just as creative with your marker and crayon color choices. They will make for interesting reading.
Card #2
This card is basically the same as Card #1 with a few variations. You will need the same materials. To produce Card #2, follow steps 1-7 that were used to create Card #1. Then do the following:
1. Remember to put aside the heart that comes from the cutting you did to create the two-sided heart in Card #1. What you put aside should be a whole paper heart that does not have a hole in it.2. If you wish to, fold a different piece of construction paper in half and draw another image. It could be a flower, a diamond, a balloon-any image you can think of.3. Open the card with the two-sided heart in it and glue or tape the whole heart cutout on one side and the other whole image cutout on the other side. If you glue the cutouts, your card will be two-dimensional. If you tape the cutouts, your card can be three-dimensional-you decide.4. With your markers or crayons, color the glued or taped cutouts and then write your love note or message in any remaining free space.5. One additional note: Should you decide to use a light shade of construction paper, the colors that you place on it can be almost anything. But a darker shade of construction paper means that you will probably have to use a black crayon or marker so that your words can be seen.
2. The Virtual way:
Are you all thumbs with scissors and glue? Do you find crafts complicated and prefer to spend most of your time surfing the net? Relax. There are a number of Internet web sites that give you the ability to craft a virtual Valentine's Day card. Some of them are:
3. The Elemental Way:
Do you or your lover live near a beach or have a passion for the outdoors? If you do, make nature's beauty your Valentine's Day card.
If you live near a beach, you can make a sand castle of a heart or wet a large section of sand and use a stick to trace a poem, a saying, love note, story, or your lover's initials in that particular area.
Were you thinking of taking your lover through a nearby forest or park? Great. Go there ahead of time to prepare your path. Find a tree on the way and use a knife to carve something small and meaningful in its bark. When your lover is with you, be sure to stroll by that same tree to show off your message. You could carve initials or the words "I love you."
4. The artistic way:
Are you a musician? A painter? A calligrapher-and you want your sweetie to carry a little bit of you with them? Cool. There are lots of ways to do this:
For musicians:
1. Buy some sheet music at a local record store, musical instrument shop, or off the Internet at:
www.Sheetmusicplus.comwww. Musicnotes.comwww. 8notes.com
2. Buy some black construction paper, some letter stencils, an X-acto knife, and a small piece of loose cardboard at a local craft or convenience store.3. Find a particularly interesting looking piece of sheet music and remove it from its book. You can either tear it out carefully or remove it with your knife for a cleaner edge. Just be sure to place the small piece of cardboard underneath the other pages to protect them if you use the knife.4. Come up with an interesting saying, message or love note to design and write on top of the sheet music.5. Use your letter stencils to trace the letters for your message on the black construction paper. Then cut the letters out and glue them either in a straight ruled pencil line or in a random pattern for some fun and visual interest.6. Finally, use your pencil and scissors to draw and cut out notes or clefs and lines and glue them around the lettered message for your card's decorative element.
For artists:
Use your canvas creatively. Paint a painting. Paint a love note or poem that is larger than life. Who says that a Valentine's Day card can't look nice as a year-round wall hanging? Your sweetie will appreciate that you have shown off your art and given him or her a little bit of yourself.
5. The once-in-a-lifetime, over-the-top way:
Are you an eccentric bonus holder looking for something unusual to do? Hire a skywriter. Skywriters will write your love note for you live and launch it into the heavens. This not only creates a beautiful view, but your beloved will definitely know that the sky was the limit then!
Here are some skywriting providers:
http://www.aviad.com/http://www.adairlines.com/http://www.sky-writing.com/
From the simple to the skyward, the possibilities are endless when it comes to making your own Valentine's Day card!
