What to Do with Your Valentine's Now that Valentine's Day is Over

If you house is like mine, the children came home with their shoe box or white decorated paper bag filled with candy and valentine's from all their school friends. Or maybe it was a Valentine party or play date with your mother's group or neighborhood. Now we have all these cute little Valentine's Day cards both extras from our purchase to give away and those that we received.

What can you do with your Valentine's Cards, now that Valentine's Day is over?

Create a scrapbook collage. Give the children some construction paper or card stock, glue and their Valentine's Day cards. They glue the cards down giving them an opportunity to use basic fine motor skills and relieve the fun of Valentine's Day. Then take a picture of your child and place it on the collage. You have a fun activity to do with the children and your scrapbooking page for Valentine's Day is done.

Donate them to St. Jude's Ranch

Used Christmas cards are accepted by St. Jude's Ranch; however they have broadened their program to include donations of any used cards until Feb. 28^th, 2009.

Send your used cards to:

St. Jude's Ranch for Children
Card Recycling Program
100 St. Jude's Street
Boulder City, NV 89005

Save your used Valentine's Day cards.

Save them for next year. After all you won't have the same children in your class, and if your unused cards are like mine (Disney Princess and Zoo Animals) they are timeless. Save some money by having them already purchased for next year. You may only need to add one box to them to have enough for next year's class.

Use them as craft or gift items

You can cut out from Valentines cards the hearts, flowers or other easily cut designs using Crayola's Cutter's and use the pictures for scrapbooking, greeting cards or craft gifts. You can also use them to decorate envelopes. Just a little dab of glue will do you - and may save you in a pinch if you don't have stickers. Use them next year or for an anniversary to create your own home made love coupons.

You can also use the designs that you cut out for children's artwork, decorate a bulletin board, or your calendar at home, for example use the flowers to mark Mother's Day or an Anniversary on the calendar.

Used Valentine's Day cards are perfect for a Bridal Shower game

Gather cards from many of your friend's right after Valentine's Day and save them for this game. To try this game, use tape over the signature or name on the card. Using a piece of poster board and an easel, mark the cards by numbering them. Give guest a sheet of paper with the numbers on them and have people guess which cards were sent to married, dating, or guests with children. A variation would be to guess which card belongs to which guest. The one with the most correct answers wins.

Valentine's Day cards have many other uses, and simply because Feb. 14^th is over doesn't mean the love, friendship, romance and flowers has to stop.