Thnx Pinterest

I have three Valentines Day themed posts to come (check out post #2 & #3 here), but based on the stomach bug that has hit our house they are/will be a little late and thus I will classify them as Just Because I Love You (JBILU) cards, shouldn’t love be celebrated on more than just Valentines day?

The first JBILU Card is an awesome 3D Lollipop Card but my second guest blogger, Christina!  Christina is the sister of my first guest blogger, Raph.  She is an awesome photographer from Ireland with two adorable little ones – check out her blog & Facebook page.  I absolutely love this idea and think it could be used for so many things: Easter card, birthday invites, thank you, Halloween, Christmas card or just to say I love/like you.

Inspiration

Loved

• We love Valentine’s crafts and when I say we, I mean me, as opposed to my 5 and 2 year old kids. As far as they’re concerned, it’s just a regular day when candy comes heart shaped and covered in red. Last year, we did simple heart doodles that Gabriella coloured with a box of Smarties taped to the back.  

Note: For our American readers, Smarties are not the Smarties candies you may be familiar with, they are better!  More like M&Ms – a must have when visiting Canada, Europe or Australia.

This year, we had Pinterest to thank for our inspiration!

• Simple and inexpensive! I took the photos of the kids and used free digital scrapbooking pages from http://shabbyprincess.com/ to pretty it up and got some giant bags of mini lolipops, a perfect fit for the cards.
• Personalized. I am channeling my vanity towards my children and its a way of saying look at ME without me in it!

Learned

• Children only have a 2 minute attention span when you are making them do specific poses.  Thankfully, my brother taught my 2 year old how to "rock" and I was (half) able to take photos one handed while trying to bump fists with my son.

• Buy and extra bag of lollipops. My kids opened (and discarded) half a bag while we were filling the cards.
• Use a SHARP craft knife. It will make life easier instead of making you want to stick it in your eye.
• You can use ANYTHING on a stick, it doesn’t have to be lollipops. It don’t know if it says much about me but Gabriella didn’t have a lollipop till she was 4 so for the little kids, you can put crayons etc. For the teachers, I put felt flowers with a stem. The possibilities are endless!

Thnx

• Thanks Christina for sharing your helpful tips (and adorable kids!).  I can’t wait to try this one myself once little C can be reasoned with for a picture!
• Thanks @designmom for the original blog post that Christina found on Pinterest
• Thanks shabbyprincess.com for the background papers – this is a digital scrapbooking site which could come in handy for future projects!
• As always, Thanks Pinterest for all the inspiring ideas. Not on Pinterest? Send me an e-mail thnxpinterest@hotmail.com and I’ll send you an invite (if you sign up for an invite on the site it will take a while). Pinterest for the inspiration