Cupid's Arrow Valentine + Free Printable

I know I'm too late in posting this for anybody to get any use out of it this year, but feel free to pin it or file it away to use some other time. These are the Valentines my daughter is giving her class. She LOVES gum and wanted to include gum with her valentine, and I got the idea from this pin. I adapted my version to work better for me. First of all, I can't find packs of gum like that... maybe they don't make them anymore? We ended up just using two sticks of gum for the middle (cheaper anyway!) and wrapped them with custom wrappers (download for free below). I also didn't want to put unwrapped candy on then end because I wasn't going to put each arrow in its own bag. I had this awesome glitter paper by American Crafts in my stash that has been waiting to see the light of day, so we pulled it out and used it for the main part of our arrows. Here's my process:

1. Gather supplies
• Glitter paper (or whatever stiff paper you have on hand, it doesn't have to be glitter... normal card stock will work great)
• Skewers (I took the picture first, but I actually cut the points off using my garden shears... figured it'd be safer that way for 2nd graders)
• Gum sticks
• 1/8" hole punch
• Baker's twine or other small string
• Printable gum wrapper (download below).





2. Cut rectangles/arrows and hearts out of paper.
• My rectangles were 1-1/8" x 2-1/4". I used scissors to notch the bottom (nothing too precise... just eyeball it), then use that triangle piece as a pattern to angle the top. This gives you the arrow shape.
• I used my Sizzix to punch out the hearts, but you could just trace a cookie cutter your own heart shape and cut them out that way.





3. Punch two holes in each shape.





4. Thread the shapes onto each end of the stick. Once the shapes are on, cut fringe in the arrow (make sure not to cut all the way to where the hole is punched).





5. Wrap the wrappers around the sticks of gum and secure with a piece of tape. One of the wrappers says "from", so you can write the giver's name on it.





6. Put two pieces of gum back to back on the middle of the stick and tie the ends together with Baker's twine (to make it a little easier, you can dab a little glue to keep the gum on the sticks before tying the string... I used a low-temp glue gun). There you go. A super cute Valentine to give away! 

Click here or on the image below to download these free, printable gum wrappers.

Happy Valentine's Day!