Valentine’s Day is a fun opportunity to get crafty! We love making seasonal crafts and treats. Some years my kids have traded those paper character Valentines. However, they inevitably end up in the trash. One year I wanted to make our family something truly special for Valentine’s Day. I created some templates you can use with any picture to make custom photo Valentines. I’m excited to share my printables and simple tips for making Valentine’s Day fun!
How to Design Photo Valentines
To make your own photo Valentines, all you need is a photo editing program that allows you to layer a graphic on top of a photo. I use Photoshop for my design projects, but there are free alternatives available that allow you to work with layers such as Gimp, a free photo editing program. If you regularly take photos of your kids, you probably have your own favorite program for editing photos.
To create custom photo Valentines, download our 4×6 overlay templates and select photos that best fit for each one. You will need to place two photos side by side in a vertical or horizontal orientation to use these photo Valentine overlays. Once you’ve created your “double image”, place the photo Valentine overlay (a transparent PNG file) on top, so that your photos show through the center cut-out. Save your photo Valentines to your computer, sized 4×6 inches, print resolution 300 dpi (dots per inch).
How to Print Photo Valentines
Next, you can easily print off your photos using a photo printing service such as Costco. If you have a Costco membership, you can order your photos online and pick them up within a day or two. Alternatively, you can go to Walmart and use one of their kiosks to print your photos right there. It often costs 9 cents to 15 cents to print a photo. These templates allow you to print two Valentines at at time, so you can cut that cost in half to determine the cost of each Valentine. This fun project costs just pennies to make your own custom photo Valentines!
You can also try printing your photo Valentines at home. However our home printer doesn’t do the greatest job when printing photos.
Once printed, cut the photo Valentines in half to separate the photos. You’ll end up with a bunch of beautifully personalized Valentines your kids can give to their friends!
Photo Valentine Templates & Printables
Use these templates to make your own photo Valentines! Save the files as .png files to maintain the inner cut-out transparency. Right click each image and select, “Save image as” to save to your computer.
Cool Template 1
Sweet Template 2
Dinomite Template 3
Friends Template 4
I hope you enjoy making your own custom Photo Valentines! Your kids, friends and family members will love them. Don’t forget to keep a few as mementos of when your kids were younger.
Photo Valentine Look Book
Photo Valentines are the perfect way to use all those adorable photos you took throughout the year! Grandma and Grandpa will love receiving a batch of photo Valentines. Also, siblings can have fun trading their photo Valentines.
Pin this to Pinterest
Who wouldn’t love to receive this darling photo Valentine? If your kids are older, you can even surprise them with photo Valentines of themselves when they were a baby. Include a note that says “You’ll always be my baby”, or “I love you as much as the first day I saw you”.
Pin this to Pinterest!
Simple Valentine’s Day Gifts
Photo Valentines are fun to pair with a pack of fruit snacks, small toy or Milk & Cookies nail polish. You can easily pic out some small gifts for Valentine’s Day without spending a lot. Colorful erasers, gel pens, hair clips, matchbox cars and stickers all make great Valentine’s Day surprises for kids!
Even our baby boy got some Valentines one year. I always love accessorizing him for holidays with adorable shoes and a cute DIY baby bow tie. You can learn how to make easy no-sew baby bow ties here!
Pin this to Pinterest
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Hi, I’m Katie! I live with my husband and 3 kids in beautiful Coeur d’Alane, Idaho. I love Jesus, coffee, DIY projects, photography, homeschooling my kids, traveling, and serving people. I’ve previously worked as a graphic designer, web designer, journalist and barista. I started Create. Play. Travel. to share some of our creative projects and family adventures. I hope you enjoy the highlights of our creative family life!
Such cute kids Valentines ideas, crafts and activities.
Great ideas and too cute!
Super cute idea. My kids would love to make photo Valentines.
How fun to make your own photo Valentines!