This year I wanted my children to give a personalized and unique gift to all their friends and teachers on Valentine’s Day. One that the parents will not toss in the trash right after the kids go to sleep or have to ration each day. Most kids get a ton of candy and it is Valentine’s Day so they should enjoy some chocolate!

At first my daughter really wanted to give candy too but after helping put these you rule valentines together, she is very excited to give them to her friends. She cannot wait to see her teachers’ reaction. Her only complaint is I did not buy rulers with centimeters on them. Next time I will buy the “right” ones.

I found the You Rule Valentine idea on Pinterest with glittered hearts. You can easily buy the glittered foam board with the adhesive backs to create the hearts. I found sheets at Michaels.  Since I wanted the gift to be a little more personalized, we punched a heart out of a photo of the kids instead of using the glitter foam hearts. Thank you Alice Park for the gorgeous photo!

I highly recommend investing in card stock instead of construction paper. It will last a lot longer and will not tear as easily. These sheets were about .50 a piece and 5 labels are printed on each page. You can buy the card stock at any craft store. I bought mine at Sam Flax and there are plenty of colors available at Michaels.

Since I could not find a template for these labels, I created my own. This took some time to select the right fonts and size as well as to line everything up so all the labels are 2 inch tall. All you need to do is mark a line with a pencil every 2 inches and cut the labels.  This template is my gift to you this Valentine’s Day. Enjoy!

you rule Happy Valentine’s Day template for printing

Directions

1) Purchase rulers, glue dots, photo paper or glitter foam paper, and red card stock. I found bulk rulers at EAI Education. Target also has them for .74 a piece.

2)Print the labels. Above is a template. Cut each at exactly 2 inches tall. Do not trim the length unless you printed on extra wide card stock.

3) I highly recommend a portable paper trimmer for this part or use an exactoknife to cut 1 inch slits for the ruler to slide through. These slits are 1 inch from the ends. Slide the ruler through the slits.

4) Find a photo and use photoshop to resize the picture so the face is less than 1.5 inches tall. Punch heart shapes using a Fiskars squeeze punch with a front view to line up the photo perfectly or cut them with a knife. Place the photos on the labels with Glue dots. You are done!