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Love Bug Pencil Valentines

Love Bug Pencil Valentines

Here's a sweet alternative to all those candy-filled valentines! With most schools banning candy and treats for holidays, we were on a hunt to find cute valentines that didn't include any sugar. I first saw these on Pinterest using pixie stix and I thought they would be perfect using our Valentine's Day pencils. Try as I might, I could not find a tutorial on how to make them (other than buying a kit) so I sat down with a pencil and some construction paper and worked up a template. Then we pulled out our craft bucket and got to work decorating these adorable little "luv bugs" for my son's preschool class!

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Materials you'll need

Step-by-step tutorial

Step 1
Gather all your ingredients. We used a variety of Valentine's Day colors for our construction paper including red, pink, purple, and yellow. We also threw in a few green and blue bugs for the boys! Also, we found that tacky glue worked best for the pipe cleaner antennae.

Step 2
I'm usually not one to waste my time searching for a template for a project that I can make myself. For these love bugs, I folded a scrap piece of white construction paper in half and drew a rough shape for half of a butterfly. (You could also get your kids to create their own template.)

Step 3
We made this a family activity and everyone grabbed their favorite color construction paper and began tracing and cutting out love bugs. This worked out well since we were trying to make them for a whole class.

Step 4
After the kids cut out their bugs, we folded them in half and made about a 1" slit at the top and bottom of the bug to allow for a pencil to slip through.

Step 5
Then, the kids decorated their bugs with markers and foam hearts. On some, they put "Luv Bug," and others got more personal messages for special friends. They glued on googly eyes and pipe cleaners for antennae to finish out the bugs.

Final result!
We inserted pencils through the slits so the pencil looked like part of the bug's body. They were a huge hit with my son's preschool class and my son loved having something to offer for those kids who can't have candy.