I just finished up my two daughter's Valentine's Day cards last night, and it made me wonder if there are other people on here that also make their kids' Valentine's Day cards from scratch (without using any kind of pre-fab template).
I create my cards in Photoshop, either starting with a blank 4x6" canvas, or by using one of my photos as the background. I sometimes will search the web for clip art of hearts, flowers, or cute little critters that I can incorporate, but most everything else is my own creation. (This year I did not happen to use any clip art.) I usually start out with no specific design in mind. I find a relatively recent photo that I like, and then the card takes shape around the photo.
I'm no graphic designer or Photoshop expert, generally just using it to touch up photos, so it probably takes me much longer to create my cards than it would for a more advanced user. (For example, it took me about 10 minutes last night figure out why the line tool was only drawing pencil-thin lines
). But for someone who has never been artistically inclined AT ALL, I've been very pleased with some of my final results. And since the cards are in 4x6" format, I just upload them to my local CVS store to print a bunch very cheaply and with excellent quality.
If Anybody else does something similar, I would love to see your work (and maybe I can get some ideas for next year!).
Here are the two cards I made last night for Valentine's Day 2014:
And here are some efforts from previous years: