You’re one cool cat

Happy Valentine’s Day friends!  May you all revel in bacchanalia and lust… or just enjoy a delicious box of chocolates from your sweetheart.  Julius has been making Valentine’s cards for everyone in his class and all of his teachers.  It’s pretty cute.  He also has been composing thematic songs with fabulous lyrics.  One of the ballads he composed was quite catchy and seemed to demonstrate his understanding of love as a give and take.  Will and I stared at each other, impressed as he spouted it off during dinner.  (We have taken to calling Julius’ ballad compositions at dinner “poetry slams”.  He really is quite good, age aside.)  My favorite set of lyrics, “I am bumpy but I can be yours.”

Patricia is trying very hard to live up to the big helper Julius has become.  She frequently helps us unload the dishwasher, feeds Dany her breakfast and dinner and will put toys and other things away when asked.  The other day Patricia saw Julius set the table for us (he did this to earn praise after we had praised Patricia for helping us unload the dishwasher… but hey a helper is a helper).  Since then Patricia has been unloading all the plastic cutlery from the kids drawer and places it in a pile on the dinner table every night.  It’s so darn cute we thank her profusely for being a big helper.  I think this makes Julius a little bit sad because he knows she isn’t doing it correctly.  We have tried to make it clear though that he is a big helper in lots of ways, and Patricia is following in his footsteps and we need to help her a bit.

Speaking of helping, Julius helped me write out Valentine’s cards last night for his classmates.  He started out by writing his friends’ names on envelope and on the cards inside and then signed it.  Each card this way took about 15 minutes, so I slowly negotiated him into writing his friend’s name only on the inside as well as his name.  This took about 10 minutes.  Finally, we negotiated that he would just write his name.  He did this rather well, but was extremely distracted and each signature took him several minutes.  It took us about an hour and a half to make out 17 cards.    l think he’s making cards for his friends in school, so I suspect he’ll get quite good at this process.  It’s cute to watch him making things for other people.  Every piece of art he brings in the door, he tells us he made for us.  Yesterday he came home with this fabulous drawing.  I won’t tell you what it is, because it’s part of my contest below… but just bask in it’s glory!

Julius’ fabulous drawing

So back to Valentines.  This might be the last year I make them to give out because designing and making 30 Valentines was not quick.  I had a lot of fun with these though.  I combined Julius’ love of stickers with Patricia’s love of hats and dress up to make kitty valentines the kids can decorate.  Julius was pretty pleased with them and excited to give the stickers to his friends.  Patricia hasn’t seen them yet, so we’ll see what she decides.  If you want to make the Valentines for yourself you can have my designs below!

Here is my version of the Valentine cards with hat stickers!

Dress Up Kitty Valentines

What you’ll need:

• Size A1 envelopes
• Avery 8.5″x11″ full page shipping labels
• 110lb cardstock in white (or ivory)
• color printer
• cricut fitted with fine point blade
• paper cutter (or scissors would work)
• Card templates here:
  • Kitty_valentine_grey
  • Kitty_valentine_orange
  • Kitty_valentine_tabby
  • Kitty_valentine_teacher
  • Kitty_valentine_white
  • Kitty_valentine_yellow
• Sticker templates here:
  • Kitty Hats Cricut Project
  • Kitty Clothes Cricut Project

1. Print out as many cards/terrible cat puns as you desire on cardstock.  Note they print 4 per page.
2. Cut cards out with paper cutter or scissors.
3. Choose if you will be making the hats-only version of the cards or the full dress up version of the stickers.  (Hats only version prints 3 sticker sheets per page, full dress up only prints 1.)
4. Load sticker paper into printer, face down (check printer configuration to make sure sheets print on the face down side).
5. Select “make it now” on your cricut design of choice.  Select “print” to send the sticker sheet to your printer.
6. After sheet has printed, align it onto the top left corner of your cricut mat (I used blue light grip mat)
7. Select material “Sticky Note” and make the pressure “less”.  (You may need to adjust this to get kiss cut stickers to work on your machine, but this one worked the best for me.)
8. Feed into the machine and press the cricut button.  The machine will cut your stickers.
9. Using a scissor or paper cutter cut the stickers into 3 distinct sheets.  You will have to cut fairly close to the stickers to fit them into the envelopes.
10. Address cards and stuff envelopes with sticker and card.
    

    Here is Julius addressing the cards!

11. Give to a friend or loved one!
    

    Finished card with all clothes stickers!

    

    Patricia put all the hats on her cat. None except one on its head

    

    Julius putting clothes on kitties

Julius’ finished creations

Wow!  You made it this far again?!  I’ve got another contest for you!  Comment below with a title for Julius’ artwork and I will enter you in a drawing for a custom t-shirt of your choice!  You have until March 14th to enter!