I’ve been working on the kids’ Valentines this year. I’m typically not really a crafty person, but I do like making photo Valentines for the kids. I feel like they are more personal and a fun thing to save in their scrapbook. But on a more practical level, they tend to be easier to assemble than the store-bought variety, it allows me to avoid standing over 4 kids signing 25 valentines each, and it really isn’t all that expensive. The past few years I’ve done optical illusion Valentines using a closet dowel as a lollipop stick: 
(You can see those tutorials here and here.) These cards are really cute, but there is some assembly required, and cutting notches and inserting lollipops can get a little tedious for 4 different classrooms. This year, I wanted to find something even easier, and that cost less money per Valentine.Cheap, lazy, and cute . . . this was my mission. I scoured Pinterest for some ideas and saw some cute photo-booth style valentines. I decided to try the same thing. First, I grabbed a chalkboard and my iphone and took four pictures of each kid holding the chalkboard with the words I wanted in the photostrip. This part took about 10 minutes. 
Then I used my phone and made a 4×6 collage of each kid’s photostrip using the Diptic app, with three rows across. The Diptic app doesn’t have a 3×4 collage, so here’s how I worked around it. First, I used this template to create the photostrip, changed the aspect to 2:3, and saved it to my camera roll: 
Then I used the 1×3 collage to paste the photostrips that I saved on my camera roll together, and saved it to 2:3 aspect (which is the same as a 4×6 photo). 
This will allow me to print them as a standard-sized 4×6 photo on Shutterfly and then cut down each photo to make three separate valentines. The 4×6 looks like this: 
Once cut, each valentine will look like this:
I also made a few version using all four kids, to give to family and friends outside of the classroom. 
Prints at Shutterfly cost 15 cents, and each photo yields three valentines, so I’m looking at about 5 cents per valentine. Not too bad! And in all, taking the photos, making the collage on my phone, and sending the photos to Shutterfly took me about an hour. I’m guessing cutting the photos will take me another hour . . . but since Shutterfly delivers I saved myself a trip to the store, which in my book is always a win. Have you seen any other fun ideas for Valentines?
Rage Against the Minivan sometimes earns revenue through sponsored posts, which are clearly labeled, and occasional affiliate links to recommended products. I only feature products that I truly like, and my opinions are always my own.