• Paper Valentine's Day crafts are easy to make and can serve as your child's Valentines for friends.valentine card kid's art image by robert mobley from Fotolia.com
  
  Valentine's Day, as with most holidays, offers kids an opportunity to make themed craft items. Paper crafts are usually easy to make and inexpensive, since kids will mostly be drawing directly onto the paper or gluing decorative items to the paper. In addition, with paper Valentine crafts, your child can have fun making them and then give them away as Valentines.
  
  

Stained Glass

• A stained-glass heart will make a nice Valentine for your child to give to someone. Cut a heart about six inches in diameter (bigger if your child wants to make a large one) out of pink cardstock. Your child can then use a glue stick to add tissue paper squares in pink, red, white and purple to cover the heart completely. When the glue dries, an adult can cut off the excess around the edges of the heart. Your child can then glue the heart to a piece of construction paper and write a Valentine's Day message on the paper around the heart. Or instead of using tissue paper squares, your child can just cut up some squares from printed, Valentine's-themed tissue paper.
  
  

Heart Wreath

• Conversation hearts may be the quintessential candy for Valentine's Day, and paper versions of them can be key elements in a heart wreath. You'll need to draw a small heart on a thin piece of cardboard or cardstock, then cut it out for a template. Provide your child with pink, red, purple, white, green and yellow pieces of construction paper and have him trace the heart template on different colors of paper. He can then cut them out and write messages similar to those on conversation hearts (such as "Be Mine," "I Love You" or "Kiss Me"). While he's working on his hearts, cut out the center of a paper plate so that you have only the rim. When he finishes his hearts, he can glue them around the rim of the paper plate. Tie a piece of ribbon in a small loop, then hot glue it to the back of the wreath so he can hang it.
  
  

Finger Puppets

• With these easy-to-make finger puppets, your kids can make Valentine puppets to keep or give away to friends. For each finger puppet, have them cut out a heart about four inches in diameter from construction paper. They can then trace a dime two times, side by side, near the bottom of the heart. They'll need to draw on a face and add hair with markers on one side and on the back, have them write Valentine's messages. To make the holes for the finger puppet, have your children use a hole punch to punch out the area inside the circles made with the dime. They can then poke their index and middle fingers through the holes. To make the Valentines sturdier, you could laminate them or cover them in contact paper before having your child punch out the holes for fingers.