Romantic Valentine’s Day Cootie Catcher Love Notes

This post is brought to you by the 1980s.

We’re going old school — or elementary school — for Valentine’s Day.

Like, love letters are so totally grody to the max. Like, gag me with a spoon.

But Valentine’s Day Cootie Catcher Love Notes? Like, totally tubular, for sure.

Enough with the Valley Girl speak. Like, if I keep that up much longer, I’m going to have to interrupt this post to watch “Heathers.”

If you watched my live Google+ Hangout on Air last week, you saw me flash back to my childhood with this fun, simple and heartfelt project that is sure to make your Valentine’s heart swoon.

Instead of a typical love note, I dusted off my 5th-grade paper folding skills and made some cootie catchers (also known as paper fortune tellers) with secret little sweet nothings hidden inside. (Next up, we’ll play M.A.S.H. and I’ll pass you a note that asks, “Do you like me?” with check boxes for “Yes,” “No” and “Maybe.”)

Each cootie catcher has eight flaps, so that’s eight chances to tell that someone special just how you feel about them.

I made a special cootie catcher for my husband for Valentine’s Day celebrating our eight years of marriage.

The flaps are numbered for each year of our marriage. When he lifts the flaps, he’ll find a memory from that year.

I pulled out my stash of decorative scrapbook paper to make my cootie catcher love notes. (I’ll show you exactly how I made them at the end of this post.)

I added little paper pull tabs to this vintage-themed cootie catcher. I just taped little strips of paper under each flap.

While I created these cootie catchers for Valentine’s Day, I think they’d be great for a wedding, too. They’d make great place cards at the reception. Guests could write messages to the bride and groom under each flap. What a wonderful keepsake that would make.

One of these would also make a great handmade anniversary gift, especially for a first-year anniversary, when the traditional gift is paper.

If you don’t have fancy scrapbook paper, don’t worry. You can still make a cootie catcher. Just grab a piece of plain printer paper and cut it into a square.

You can embellish your paper fortune teller with washi tape, stickers, rub-on transfers or even your own artwork. There are so many possibilities.

Now, let me show you how to make your own cootie catcher. Watch the You Tube video to see me fold one of these, or scroll down for step-by-step pictorial tutorial.

Do you want to see that in photos?

Here it is one more time.

Now, go be sweet. And if you want more cheap, easy and crafty Valentine’s Day gift ideas, check out my Google+ Hangout on Air with Marty of Marty’s Musings. We share lots of “sweet nothings” for Valentine’s Day, where it really is the thought that counts.

Be sure to check out my other Valentine’s Day craft and gift ideas.

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