As a seasoned room mom that helps plan class parties up at my kids’ elementary school, I give the thumbs down to Oriental Trading Company crafts that just get thrown in the trash the moment the kids step through the door. As a result, when the head first grade room mom asked if I would help head up a little personalized Valentine’s craft for all the first graders, even though I knew it might be a sizable amount of work, I agreed.

The head room mom and I went up to the school and took pictures of the 100+ first graders. We set them in front of a large piece of foam core and had them pretend that they were blowing kisses. I cropped and adjusted each picture in Photoshop and then imported each into a card template I’d designed in Illustrator. I had the cards professionally printed on nice, heavy glossy cover stock  and found some yummy, high-quality square envelopes on clearance at paperpresentation.com. At the party, the kiddos wrote a little note to their mom or dad on the back of the card and decorated the envelope.

Perhaps, like the junk crafts that I dislike, the card ended up in the trash can at home, but maybe a few moms tucked it away as a memento of their sweet first grader.

I know I did.