I'm Rootin For You, Valentine! DIY

Today is the Valentine's day party in my daughter's 4th grade class.  She always wants to bring something a little different from the usual boxed valentines you can buy at Wal-Mart, Target, or where-ever.  This year we did this:

We found the basic idea of soda pop  valentines on Pinterest.  Shaylee came up with the greeting, "I'm rootin' for you to have a great Valentine's Day" herself.   She wanted a phrase that didn't sound like she might "like, like a person..."  so wishing her friends to have a great day was a good call!

I just made a little design using clip art  in a Word Document and then printed them out on card stock.  Unfortunately, my printer was out of colored ink, and I didn't have any colored paper on hand... If I were to do these again, the tags would for sure be more colorful.

Then, just cut out the hearts, punch a hole for the ribbon, and tie to the cans... easy peasey and I am sure the kids will love it... the best part the root beer was on sale for $3 a 12 pack, so these valentines only cost a couple dollars more than the little boxed ones.

Valentine Cookies

Every Valentine's day I like to make special cookies for my kids.  My grandma used to make my cousins and I a goody bag of home-made cookies for Valentine's day each year, half of the cookies would be frosted heart shaped sugar cookies, the other half would be M&M cookies, made from the special red, pink, and white colored Valentine ones.   I love that tradition and I want to keep it going.  The cookies I make each year are a hybrid of both sugar cookies and M&M cookies! 


What you will need is:
 2 cake mixes ( I used two strawberry cake mixes... the flavor is delish and I love the color pink)
(Follow this recipe to make dough... If you would like your cookies to be two-toned keep the dough seperate and either use two different flavors of cake mix, or add food coloring to one)

2 heart shaped cookie cutters that are similarly shaped but one is larger and one is smaller

1 cup or so of M&Ms

*Powdered Sugar ---this is just for rolling the dough on, my grandma taught me to always roll out my cookies on powdered sugar and not flour... flour makes cookies dry and dense and flavorless, powdered sugar lets the cookies remain light, fluffy, and just adds sweetness, (and calories, but its okay on holidays right?)

Now-- Hey, Hey, Here we go!!

1. Make your dough--here is the LINK to the recipe again--I used the same flavor cake mixes, so I added a few drops of red food coloring to the mix  when I made the second  batch of dough to get a contrast in the colors.

2.   Roll out the dough (on powdered sugar)...  I start with one color and cut large hearts first, then in the middle of the large hearts cut out a small heart*, and set the small heart aside (you will use it later to fill in the hole of the other color large heart)

 

 

*you may need to use a fork to help lift out the center heart

 

 

 

3. Repeat  step 2 with the other color of dough, when you remove the center heart from those hearts, put them in the holes of the other color large hearts, like placing a puzzle piece.  Seal the edges by lightly patting the dough until the hole is completely filled with the new color center heart.

 

sorry about my finger being covered in cookie dough... lol

 

 

4. Gently press in M&Ms into the unbaked cookies, no need to press them in super deep, when the cookies bake they will rise around the m&ms-- holding them in place.

 

 

 

5. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Let them cool a little before removing them from their pan, or they will break--and no one wants a broken heart (ha ha!)

 

 

Here they are all finished, and so so tasty!