Easy Pop-Up Heart Card for Valentine's Day

All kids (and most grownups) like interactive cards. This year, craft a meaningful Valentine's day by using materials you already have on hand to make a one-of-a-kind card that will stand out from the rest! You can use a heart shape or modify the design to make a star, oval (for an egg for Easter, for example), or tree-shape (for Christmas cards). The variations are limitless, and it's a great lesson in shapes, symmetry and reflection, too!

It took my preschooler less than five minutes to make this card for her teacher, and it looks wonderful!

Here's what you'll need: two pieces of paper in different colors (heavier papers, like construction or scrapbook papers work best, although even cut-up brown paper bags can be very effective when painted and decorated), some scissors, something that can be either erased or a color you don't mind seeing in the finished product in order to draw your heart, a glue stick (any adhesive that won't make a huge mess is an added bonus), and some crayons, markers, stickers or other simple items to decorate the card when you're done.

Fold both pieces of paper in half, making sure to give them a good, straight crease down the middle.

Now take the piece of paper that will be the "inside" of your card and draw half of a heart on the folded edge, as if you were dividing a heart directly in half down the center.

Cut the heart outline out, but leave a "hinge" on the side of the heart uncut -- this will keep the heart attached to the paper. You need this hinge if you want to popup effect to work (although a cutout heart is quite nice and would work on a different project!).

Push the heart through to the inside of the card, being careful not to tear the hinge. Gently fold the card with the heart on the inside so that the crease in the middle of the heart now faces the other direction. When the card is opened, this will "pop out" and give the heart a 3-D effect that is exciting and simple to make.

You can decorate the heart, or draw an arrow shape through the hinges that connect the heart to the paper.

All that's left is for you and your children to glue both papers together -- this is where the different colors of paper really show to their best effect, because when the card is opened, you can see the pop-up heart really stand out against the other paper color.

Have fun with this project and share the beautiful results with someone special!