Adorable Owl Valentines

Here's a quick tutorial for these cute owl valentines! These are pretty easy, especially if you do a little prep work ahead of time. If you are making these with your kids, I suggest doing a lot of the cutting and punching beforehand. Then you can just help the kids assemble the valentines, which is the fun part anyway!

You will need:

This template (pdf)
tan (or other color) cardstock
construction paper in multiple colors
googly eyes (size 14 mm)
round white stickers
exacto knife
circle punch, 1.25 inches
valentine pencils from the dollar section of Target or Dollar Tree
Tacky glue
glue stick
tape
labels
a treat to go on the back

I know that seems like a lot of supplies, but chances are you have most of it on hand already.

Prep work
Figure out how many valentines you'll be making. You can get four owl bodies on one piece of cardstock, so that will tell you how much cardstock you'll need.

Download a copy of the template. If the image is too big, you might need to resize it to 8.5 by 6 inches. To make sure it's the right size, put the format on landscape before printing it off. It should be about the size of a half-sheet of paper. Trace four of the owl's heads per piece of cardstock. Keep the scraps because you should be able to cut the wings out with them.

Cut out your owl bodies and wings with cardstock and the faces with construction paper. For the faces, I just fold the construction paper in half and only trace half of the heart template and cut. But if you don't want fold lines, just trace the whole heart and cut. Then punch out a bunch of eyes with the circle punch, using cardstock. Use a variety of colors for the faces and eyes if you want.

Cut out a bunch of beaks and feet using orange construction paper. For the beaks, cut a bunch of small triangles down one side of the sheet. Then when you are done, cut a straight line down the sheet again and you'll have double the amount. Easy.For the feet, cut a bunch of slits in one side of the paper. Then cut little w's in the bottom of them. These don't have to be perfect- they are just valentines! Cut a straight line down the paper to cut all the feet off. Now you should have a nice little pile of bodies, wings, faces, eyes, beaks, and feet!

How to assemble

1. Glue the heart onto the body with a glue stick.2. Glue two circles punched out with your circle punch on for the eyes. Then center some white circle stickers on them. 3. Glue the eyes on with Tacky glue. Make sure they are centered and let them dry for a few minutes so they don't move. By the way, this glob I put on was too much! Use a little less than this so the glue doesn't blob out the sides.
4. Attach the wings to either side of the body. You can use a glue stick, but I like to tape them on. Just place the wings behind the body and tape on the back side. Add a beak with a glue stick.

5. Using your exacto knife, cut two slits near the bottom. Be careful not to cut all the way through the bottom- leave a good space so it can hold the pencil in well. If it is too small for the pencil, cut a little more towards the top. Glue on two little feet and put the pencil through.

6. Make some labels on your computer using your word processor. I wrote "Owl always be your friend!" but you can write whatever owl pun you can think of. Maybe "You're a hoot!" would be cute too! Stick the labels on the back and tape a little treat on.
And you're done! I'll be posting another cute valentine idea tomorrow.