Step away from the store-bought cards and create your own messages of love with a little inspiration from these homemade Valentine’s Day Cards.

Step away from the store-bought cards and create your own messages of love with a little inspiration from these homemade Valentine’s Day Cards.

1. Hey Foxy!

What does the fox say? How about “Happy Valentine’s Day!” To make this bushy-tailed friend, help your little ones cut out two heart shapes from card stock paper: a large red one, and a smaller white piece. Cut two red triangles with round tips for ears, and a pair of smaller triangles in white. Then, cut a tail shape from a fun patterned paper. We used scrapbooking paper with hearts, but you could also use polka dots or another coordinating print. Have your child glue all of the pieces together. Finish by cutting another large heart from the red, white, or patterned paper and gluing it to the back of the valentine. When the glue dries, children can draw eyes, a nose and mouth on the front and write a sweet message on the back. Craft from Parents.com.

2. Paper Hearts

For these cutesy cards, we took inspiration from the blog A Step in the Journey. Georgia blogger Laura Beth simply cut out paper hearts of different sizes and covered them with strips of washi tape. Children of all ages can combine different colors and patterns of the versatile tape, which you can find at your favorite craft or office store. Fold colored cardstock or scrapbooking paper into cards and let your young crafter arrange hearts. Mix in stickers, paper heart doilies and any other craft supplies you have in your stash. Paste into place and write a note inside. Craft from AStepInTheJourney.com.

3. Vibrant Valentine

If your child wants to gift classmates a unique valentine, help him create these heart-shaped crayons we found on the home blog Apartment Therapy. Gather remnants, broken pieces or unused crayons from your art supplies, and break or cut into small pieces. Have your child arrange the pieces in a heart-shaped mold; we used Wilton’s silicon heart-shaped muffin mold and baking pan. Encourage fun color combinations, like red and pink for V-Day, or choose to pile all different colors into each mold. Bake the crayons at 150-170 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes or more—smaller pieces typically melt faster. Wait until completely cooled to pop out of mold. Use double-sided tape or a dab of hot glue to attach to card. Craft from ApartmentTherapy.com.

4. Lacy Letter

Kids can easily spruce up a small card for their classmates by wrapping their valentines in paper heart doilies, an idea we spotted on the blog Say Yes to Hoboken. To make the lovely envelope, position a large paper heart doily with the front facing down on the table and the point of the heart at the top. Place the note in the center, and fold the right and left sides of the doily around the card. Fold the bottom and tops to the center and hold in place with a festive sticker. Craft from SayYesToHoboken.com.

5. Love Game

If you’re feeling really creative, try coming up with an original. Survey your craft supplies with your child and see who can concoct the cleverest card with the goodies you already have. Leftover flamingo party picks and patterned cardstock came in handy to create a silly “Two Birds of a Feather Flock Together” card. We also used heart-speckled washi tape to make X’s and felt heart stickers for O’s on an “XOXO” card. Encourage your kiddo to use her imagination, and she’ll probably come up with your favorite missive yet.

This article originally apppeared on LittleRockFamily.com in February 2016.