I put all my eggs in picnik.

Due to the opening of the "very pinteresting" party earlier this week (have you gotten in on that, by the way?  You know you want to...) there will not be a "very pinteresting" showcase today.  You're disappointed, aren't you?  I knew it.


So, to buoy you up through this difficult time, I've decided to share a few Valentine's ideas and, dare I say it?  Printable cards!  Are you a sucker for a good printable card/label/gift tag that makes life so much easier on you?  I am.  Especially now that the dumb photo editing software that shall remain nameless due to my especially explosive feelings of disgust and irritation is closing it's stupid picnik doors for good.  Oh, whoops.  It slipped out.
Don't know about you, but I depended on that one site for every.single.blog.post.  Every single one.  Not kidding.  Classic case of putting all your eggs in one basket, let me tell you.  Well where am I supposed to put my eggs NOW, picnik?  Huh?  (No, I'm serious.  Where am I supposed to put my eggs?  I've tried photobucket, phixr, and picasa.  Any other ideas?)


Wait.  Wasn't I doing something else here?  Oh, yes.  The Valentine ideas.  So.  Here they are.

I've seen a TON of really cute DIY Valentine ideas on the cheap for kids to hand out at school - in fact, you can see a lot of them on my Valentine's LOVE board on pinterest.  


But what about something a little extra for those special people in your life?  The people you want to focus a little more on but still don't want to break the bank for?  I'm talking about the nephews, the nieces, the godson, the godfather (just kidding.  You probably just want to stay AWAY from that guy.  From what I've heard, he's probably not into the mushy Valentine sentiment, anyway.)


Here's the idea I had for my son.  He's at that age where he's starting to LOVE a good family game.  So, in order to steer him away from playing Operation 60 times a day (gotta love that buzzer) I decided to give my monkey some monkeys.  

I thought it might also be fun to divide up the monkeys and give one with a tag on it to each kid in a family.  Then when they combined their valentine's they'd have the whole game (If you've got 10 kids that is... otherwise, they'd just have a partial game with the rest of the game already in the barrel).

On a side note, did you play with Barrel of Monkey's as a kid?  I think each of my siblings and I had two barrels each.  We could make a serious monkey chain.  Do you know how hard it is to FIND Barrel of Monkeys at the store now???


Another side note.  Yes, I'm aware it's called Barrel of MONKEYS, not Barrel of Apes, or even Gorillas.  Too bad.  I guess you could go generic and use "I'm going PRIMATE over you" but it doesn't have the same ring.  By the way, did you ever notice how weird the word Barrel looks?  Barrel.  Barrel.  Barrel.  Huh.  It sounds funny too.


And for the girl?  Well, who didn't have hours of fun with this 80's classic?  I'm picturing hours of fun while she shoves it down the stairs and hours of "fun" while I try to untwist all the knots.

Do you love how it's touted as a "WALKING spring toy" or is that just me?  


Side note, I noticed they have smaller plastic slinkys (slinkies?) at Target today for cheap.  If you wanted to do this "You put a spring in my step" thing for a class of kids.

Another side note, is that too many side notes for one blog post?


And for the mr?  Well, we love games around here, so how about:

That says "Everyday I fall for you all over again."  Not to go all mushy or anything.  But I actually DO love that guy.  So, yeah.  

I know, it's not the prettiest little package - the box is a little garish, yes?  I wish I could have found some all wooden, vintage-y ones.  You could just wrap it if you want.
Or, if you want something cutesy, you could just tie one little old domino up with a tag like this:

Good for a crush maybe?  


And now, for the tags, in case you'd like to use them as well.  Now you don't have to do any of the work!  (Except for hunting down the darn Barrel of Monkeys.  Sorry.  I found mine at Target - so go there first.)

(right click to download)

For the record, I did NOT make these with picnik.  In preparation for the significant amount of withdrawal I will suffer at the end of this month (GASP!) I decided to try using simply pages and iphoto on my mac.  I used about 10 different decorative fonts (I think.  I lost track after a while), along with some shapes from the menu and a few hand drawn (mouse drawn?) shapes of my own.  It took a whole heck of a lot of finagling and a ridiculous amount of time saving them in stages so I could overlap layers.  I really do need ideas for a better solution, I think.

*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!