Deep South Sweets: Saturday Sweets: Tearing Up My Heart Valentines

When I saw these adorable valentines over at Dana Made-It and Lullaby Lubbock, I was absolutely smitten and convinced that this is what my little nut would take for her preschool valentines. The wonderful thing about this project is that you can make it as easy (using staples or tape) or as complicated (sewing) as you want. I decided to go with sewing because I doubted the preschool teachers would appreciate stapled valentines. I printed off an extra on plain white paper so that the nut could color some of her own and be involved. We worked on scissor skills helping her cut the hearts and then she diligently stuffed the candy into her valentines (with washed hands of course) one by one.

Grab some super cute scrapbook paper from your local craft store. Preferably a standard sheet of 8x11 printer paper. I wasn't satisfied with the standard printer size craft paper so I bought the large paper and cut it down to size. You will want one sheet of paper per two valentines.

Download the PDF over at Dana Made-It and print those bad boys out. I just love the phrases. My printer and I had to have some good "come to Jesus meetings to get them to print". Thankfully he behaved after a little time out.

Sit down to your favorite DVR'd show and cut, cut, cut. And then cut a little more! Once they are cut out match them up with their backs and get them ready to be sewn. I found that for some reason the "Tearing up my heart" didn't match up as well with the matching back. I will explain my solution in a minute.

Sew around the border of the heart leaving a one inch(ish) spot at the top of the heart to stuff with candy. Trim the strings and use a sharpie to color in the white paper seen around where the edges didn't meet exactly.

Use a toothpick or your (clean) finger to open up the hole in the top. This may break a few seams, but don't worry because you can fix them when you sew the opening closed.

Look at those sweet little hands stuffing the candy into the hearts! Wash your kiddos hands up good (I promise I am not a germaphobe just don't like the idea of handling candy other kids will eat with dirty fingers). Then let them stuff the chosen candy (jelly beans, M&Ms, the ideas are endless) into each heart. We were able to get about 20 M&Ms into each heart. Of course I had to text my mom (she was a teacher for years) and make sure 20 M&Ms was sufficient (I told her not to laugh when I texted that question).

Once each heart is sufficiently full make sure there is enough room to flatten out and sew closed. Run those bad boys through the sewing machine to close them up!

You can now finish them off any way you like. I used the leftover paper to make little tags since the schools directions were just to address who they were from.

We had to stop last night and enjoy a little Valentine's breakfast for dinner with blueberry muffins died pink, strawberry hearts, scrambled eggs in red cups, and bacon hearts.