How to Make Sign Language Valentines

When I made these, I completely lucked out.  I found these foam heart cut-outs at the store that just happened to be the exact right size to fit into the palm of a hand.  They also came with a little stand.  The teachers loved this because they could stick them on top of their computers, desks, you name it.  You were supposed to put a photo in them, but I just used the hole to address mine.  They were $1 and I think I got 25.  No need to fear, though.  You can simply use hearts cut out of construction paper.  That's what I had my students do the next year when we made these.

What You'll Need

• skin tone colored construction paper or cardstock (you can gets packs of this at somewhere like Staples or Office Max for a ton cheaper than  at crafting or scrapbook stores.)
• pink/red construction paper or card stock (or purple.  Or really whatever colors you want to make your hearts.)
• scissors
• a pen or pencil for tracing
• a pen or sharpie for addressing

How to Do It

1. Trace your or your child's hand onto one of the pieces of paper.  Do it as many times as you can fit without overlapping.  When I did this, I traced my hand every....single....time.  In a day of 3-in-1 printers, that probably isn't necessary.  Just do one, and use the copy feature on your printer to copy the hands onto the skin toned paper.
2. Cut out the hands.
3. Cut out hearts.  Mess around with the first one  until you get it the right size to fit in the hands. Then use it as a pattern to cut out all the rest of them.
4. Glue the hearts onto the palms of the hands.
5. Bend the ring and the middle fingers down so they are holding the heart, but not covering it.  Glue the two fingers down.
6. Write your "To/From" info in the middle of your heart and you're done!  The hand says, "I LOVE YOU" in sign language.

Here's another really cute idea I saw this year...nothing to do with sign language, but ridiculously adorable and creative:

Click here for source and easy peasy tutorial.

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