A sweet little something to replace your standard Valentine’s Card

I’ve already previously shared that I kind of enjoy Valentine’s Day. I love love and my love language is definitely Words of Affirmation so having a day devoted to expressing your feelings is definitely a day worth celebrating in my book.

I thought it would be fun to share our yearly traditional gift that is great for Grandma, sitters, daycare, and anyone else you want to give a sweet little something from you and your little ones to on the 14th.

Doing portraits at home is always best in a room that receives alot of natural light. If possible have your subject facing towards that light, for instance have them face towards a window rather than their back to it. I happened to have on hand some of this textured wallpaper that I love and I knew I would be using this since my best lit area had red brick walls.

I taped two sections of the wallpaper up to the wall to give me a bit of a wider area to work with (aka increase my odds of getting a photo before he ran out of frame). I also have zero ability to cut things in a straight line, so I grabbed some faux greenery to fill in the space between the floor and bottom of my backdrop, giving me this set up.

Grab a willing and patient partner and a well fed, happy toddler to begin your portrait session. I promised both my partner and my toddler that if we didn’t make this happen in the next 15 minutes, we would take a break and try another time/day. We handed a few different items to our toddler and as I began clicking rapid fire, my husband was responsible for scooping him up and placing him back in front of the backdrop while handing him our “stick-like” items.

Side note: You may have a plethora of images like the above before you get “the one.”

Also, every time someone says he is my mini me, I assume they are referring to the last picture of this grid…… ;)

Eventually you are able to grab a couple of pictures that will work just perfect for your Valentine!

I know he’s mine but … he’s a pretty cute kid. Even if he is ornery as can be.

Once you’ve got the shot, print your photo in the size/# of your preference. I like to have a few 8x10 prints for Grandmas, but you can also do 5x7’s or even wallet size for daycare or classmates.

With your printed photos in hand and the above supplies gathered, you can now put together your Valentine’s. If you would like to write a sweet note on the back, go ahead!

Using your straight edge blade, make straight cuts along the outside of the toddler’s hand. The reason they were holding an item in the photo is to be able to give this a “3D” effect to make them hold the actual flower or sucker!

The benefit of using a razor of some sort versus a scissors is a cleaner cut without having to bend your photo. The cleaner the cut, the more likely you will be able to remove the flower/sucker and still have an intact displayable photo afterwards!

Now gently insert your flower or sucker into the slit you’ve made. We picked up a bouquet from Costco. If you haven’t checked out their florals, please do! We actually used them for our wedding and they were not only beautiful the day of, but stayed gorgeous for a good month after! But don’t get me started on Costco or we could be here for awhile…#obsessed.

Now you’ve got a little something of your little sweetheart to share with loved ones.

If printing on stockpaper, you could print wallet size images and use a small sucker to hand out in classrooms or daycare. Last year we took a similar photo (of a much smaller, less mobile Hatcher), added a flower and a box of macaroons as a gift to his daycare teachers.

I’m really looking forward to having this as a tradition and series of photos we can look back on and see just how quickly he grows in a year!

Do you have any fun love day traditions with your little ones? Let me know!

Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all!