Handmade photo cards for Valentine's Day and a free printable

What could be more personal and thoughtful than giving your sweetheart a Valentine card that you created yourself? It's so easy to make keepsake cards for the holidays or a special occasion using your photos and some basic card making tools.

For Valentine's Day I am giving my husband this handmade card. I created it using a picture that was taken of us at the Eiffel Tower last year. The card took less than an hour to make because I was able to print the photo at home on my photo printer. The hardest part about making the card was trying to decide which photo to use!

Photo cards don't have to be really complicated to look good. So keep it simple!

Gather your materials: blank cards and envelopes, photos, glue dots or two-sided tape, decorative tape, scissors, ruler and a pencil. It's also nice to have a large paper cutter, paper punches, cardstock, scrap paper, stamps, ink pads and ribbons.

You can purchase blank cards at most arts and craft stores or make your own using cards using cardstock. 

To help get you started on making your own handmade card for Valentine's Day, I created a free download with six different love themed sayings.

 I prefer to cut my photos using large paper punches or my paper cutter because I can quickly and easily crop photos into perfect shapes.

My tip for using paper punches - position your photo in the paper punch so that you can see what you are cutting out before you punch.

For the best results, always use glue dots or two-sided tape to attach your photo to your card. Washi tape and glitter tape make nice decorative elements to use on your cards.

If you prefer not to cut your photos, another option is to cut a hole on the card front using the paper punches and add your photo to the inside of the card as shown above.

I created this free printable with saying that are suitable for Valentine's day, wedding or  anniversary cards. Simply download the file and print the second page onto cardstock. Cut the sayings out and add them to your handmade cards.

Like the idea of creating more cards using your photos? Want a little more inspiration? Check out Roam New Roads and my video tutorial for handmade photo cards.