Cards from the heart

My six-year-old daughter and I just finished valentine cards for her classmates.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out considering we only used supplies found at home, and my daughter was able to do nearly all the steps of the project on her own.  

The first step was assessing our stock of craft supplies.  We gathered together some cream cardstock, crepe paper streamers, cutting and hole-punching gadgets, and an alphabet band stamp.

After brainstorming a basic card design, we started cutting strips of crepe paper streamers and gluing them onto paper.  (We used regular white copy paper as a base, but paper with printed text would have been fun, too.)  We made a total of three letter size sheets and let them dry overnight.

The next day, I made a heart template that my daughter used to trace onto the backside of the streamer collages.  We were able to cut nine hearts from one sheet.

While I cut the cardstock into quarters, my daughter used a decorative scissors ("clouds") along the edges of the paper to create a scalloped look.  We then glued the hearts onto the cards leaving some space at the top for the stamped message.

Initially, I wanted to stamp "Je t'aime" on the cards, but my daughter's vote was for "I heart you." As my daughter stamped the valentine message onto the cards, I detailed the edges with a small hole punch.  (Another decorative touch could be two purple lines sewn alongside the edges.)

We made twenty-seven cards altogether.  Now to start on an entirely different set of cards with my other daughter!