Nothing says LOVE like, um . . . romantic poetry on your refrigerator? Well, sure! And that’s our offering today: a do-it-yourself Valentine-themed magnet poetry kit.

(To download a printable PDF of these instructions and two pages of poetic words, click here.)

What you’ll need
• magnet paper (these are magnetic sheets of “paper” with a printable white surface)
• your inkjet printer  (Note: do NOT use magnet paper with a laser printer!)
• scissors

What to do

1. Download and print out the PDF included here. Check to make sure pages 2 and 3 fit on the page properly. (They should— but it’s always a good idea to run a test before printing onto the magnet paper.)

2. Load the magnet paper into your printer.

3. Print out pages 2 and 3 from the PDF.

4. Cut out each word.

5. Place magnet words in a small box or tin (we like using the little tins that mints are sold in in); and

6. Present to your sweetie!

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OR, for bonus points! Make your own personalized magnet kit for a one-of-a-kind gift—using any words you like: the recipient’s name, your name, some of his or her favorite things, words that reference places that are important to you, words that evoke a special memory, song titles, pet names, favorite foods, etc.

Here are some of our suggestions for making a successful poetry kit:

1. Using your computer word-processing software, select an easily readable typeface in a large point size. (We used 24-point Helvetica.)

2. Make the line spacing at least 1.5 or double spaced so you’ll have room above and below to cut.

3. Type in your words. Put 3 or 4 spaces between each word, and hit return when you reach the end of each line to avoid hyphenations.

4. Be sure to include a mix of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then add some suffixes like ly, ing, ed, and s to give your poet more flexibility. Don’t forget to add plenty of articles, conjunctions, pronouns (especially I, you, me, we, us!) and prepositions: words like the, it, in, my, your, over, up, on, out, of, for, from, a, an . . . without those little in-between words it can be hard to make sentences!

5. Print out and cut up, following the instructions above.

Now . . . start making beautiful poetry together!

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P.S. If you make these, we would love to see some of your poems! Email us at laurat (at) mothering.com

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Magnet set created and photographed by Melyssa Holik

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Tags: craft, gift, handmade, melyssa holik, Valentine, Valentine's Day

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at 3:52 pm and is filed under creativity, mothering staff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.