Valentines With Fynn

I decided this year that Fynn is old enough to help make Valentines for people.  Now obviously at 18 months I'm not expecting him to do everything himself or anything. But I want to instill a "Handmade is Best" kind of feeling in him and I figure to keep up with all of the commercialism out there I had better start fun.  That and, frankly, this is the reason I had kids, so we could do stuff like this; make messes that after a certain age just aren't cool anymore.  So we made cut and paste Valentines. 
First find some envelopes you want to use to mail them, all the other measurements are based on the size of these envelopes so they do sort of have to come first.  I had some lying around that are 5.5" by 7.5" so that is what we used.
After you know how big your envelopes are you can figure out from there the size of your card.  You want it to be a bit smaller so it will easily go into your envelope without too much fuss.  And because the cardstock I am using measure 12" by 12" to begin with I decided it would work out great.

 For the card you cut a piece of cardstock almost as tall as the envelope or 5" in my example and a little less then twice as wide as your envelope.  I went with 12", the whole width of the cardstock, because it would fit nicely in my envelope. 

 After you have cut as many 12" by 5" pieces as you want for cards let your little one color away.  Fynn is a great scribble artist.  While he was coloring I printed some pictures of him to send to everyone with the valentine and a 4" by 6" photo fits beautifully in a card this size, but you could make your photo any size using some editing software to suit any size card you want. 
After the cardstock has been colored, painted, glittered, or decorated however your little artist desires; write a message on one of the corners to your valentine.  We went with the very simple and sweet "Love You".  And I wrote this in crayon to stick with the theme. 
When you are ready to fold the cards, after any decorations to the inside have had time to dry, take the two short sides and fold them so they meet in the middle of the long side.  Now you can get all precise with this and measure and stuff, but I actually think it looks neat if it is a little off kilter, so I didn't bother.

Next, out of card stock scraps (we had a 2" by 12" piece left over after cutting out cards from the original 12" by 12" piece that worked perfectly for this) cut out some free hand heart shapes. 
You can even cut hearts out of contrasting papers and glue the one on top of another for a cool overlapping look. 

 
Then glue, using some paper glue, the heart to one of the flaps that meet in the middle; positioning the heart so that it is centered over the center of the card.  Be careful not to glue the heart to both flaps or you won't be able to open the card. Let this glue dry for a few minutes while you address your envelopes. 

After you slide your cards, with any accompanying photos, into your addressed envelopes; seal the envelope and glue another free hand heart to the outside.  And you will have a Valentine ready to mail to relatives near and far.
A note about the hearts, feel free to use a paper punch, I know that they make some especially for scrapbooking in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  I have never purchased one and I do love the imperfect look of a freehand heart.  Also while we stuck to coloring our valentines, I'm sure older kids would get a kick out of painting, using glitter glue or even using magazine pages to make a collage on the inside of the card. 

This is my first tutorial so I hope you like it.  I really hope it was easy to follow and you can understand all of my jibberish.  Please, if you have any questions or think something should be better clarified, shoot me a message in the comments or send me an e-mail.  I would love your suggestions.