making sewn valentine's day cards

We are officially ready for Valentine's Day. For once I got a jump on a holiday and  had the kids make cards a little bit in advance. We tried something different this year: sewn cards. You can sew perfectly fine through card stock, so that's what we did this year. I found these scalloped flat cards at Staples (sorry, couldn't find the cards on their website). They come in maybe 8 colors with mix & match envelopes.

I am nothing if not well stocked with fabric scraps, so the kids went to town picking fabrics to cut into heart shapes. I tried not to interfere with their choices. The more naive, the better with these cards.

I had them cut out hearts freehand, some with pinking sheers and some with standard scissors.

Both of my kids like to use the sewing machine. There is nothing special to sewing on the paper and any crookedness makes them better, I think.

I'm not a scrapbookin' type, but I recently got this set of vintage-style alphabet rubber stamps from Etsy. Lots of supply shops carry them, but set your search to "shop local" (ie. USA) if you don't want to deal with overseas shipping. They are perfect for finishing off the cards and, well, scrapbooking too ;)

Happy Valentine's Day!