"As per Smithsonian, the smiley face as we know it today was created by Harvey Ross Ball, an American graphic artist. In 1963, Harvey Ball was employed by State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) to create a happy face to raise the morale of the employees."
Emojis, used in emails and text messages to convey an emotion using a symbol rather than words, may be a throwback to the smiley faces of my childhood, I'm thinking. 😊 On Pinterest, a particular emoji got my attention. According to emojipedia.org, "This emoji is a face blowing a kiss; but officially called Face Throwing A Kiss. One eye is open, the other is winking. A heart is shown leaving the kissing mouth." Upon clicking Pinterest's Housing a Forest link, I read the simple instructions and printed the PDF to make an emoji face throwing a kiss valentine then gathered supplies and organized my work table into an efficient assembly line. I got busy. Snip snip. Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk. Seven grandchildren. Seven valentines. I happened to have a punch cutter that was the exact size of the red heart, and, although I didn't have a circle cutter for the eye, I would recommend both.
This project transported me back to my elementary school days when I transformed a shoe box into a truck and an oatmeal box into a silo as a receptacle for classmates to slip valentines into. As I cut, punched, and glued, the radio station I chose to listen to provided music that I remember my mother playing as I was growing up...Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, so it was the perfect environment for my mind to happily wander. But, I found my way back.
If you're desiring additional ideas, here is a Star Wars-themed printable valentine that I made last year. I found the glow sticks for Yoda at Michaels, but you can sub pixie sticks or bright colored pencils. And here's a Valentine's Day Goodie Bags printable PDF to package brownies. The brownie recipe that I used is here. Note: The bag label PDF provided by Kathleen at Twig and Thistle was originally designed in 2010 and she kindly edited it for 2011. I was hoping that she would provide an updated PDF each February to reflect yet another new year, but sadly she hasn't posted on her blog since February 9, 2012. Maybe you can devise a way to ingeniously update the year printed on the bag? It's certainly worth the effort. The bags are sweet.