Keepsake Valentine Garland Tuturial

This Valentine garland is a super-easy Valentine’s Day craft.

Each paper heart on the garland has a child’s hand print, and a list of the things they love this year. You can bring it out and add to it year after year to create an awesome keepsake! Please note: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. So I may earn a small fee if you buy through the links in this post without it affecting the cost to you.

You will need:

White card stock
Hole punch
Ribbon
Rainbow washable ink pad
Hook to hang your garland (cup hooks or sticky Command hooks)
Diaper wipes or similar
Helper / minion to do your bidding

Step 1

Cut some heart shapes out of the card stock. I printed a heart that I found on Google and used that as a template for tracing. No drawing skills necessary!

Punch holes on either side of the hearts. Make a few extra because kids are squirmy and some of your hand prints will not work out.

Step 2

Go get your minion (husband?) and child. Press your child’s hand in the middle of the ink pad, then onto a heart. It may take a couple of tries to get this right. Be sure to have some wipes handy to clean the little hands unless you want adorable hand prints EVERYWHERE.

If you are doing this with a baby, it will be kind of hard. Once the ink is on a baby’s hand, the baby always, always makes a tight fist and cries. Babies hate this, but it’s WORTH IT. Get your minion to help you pry that hand open and press it flat on the paper.