Valentine’s Day is a fun holiday, mostly because my kids absolutely love giving gifts to their friends. This year I decided to do something a little different and even though it goes against my anti-time consuming valentine policy, I am pretty sure it was well worth it!
Every once in a while my husband stops at the quickie on his way home from work and buys a couple of scratch tickets. We have big dreams of winning the Lucky for Life one and you can’t win if you don’t play right! The first time he did this he brought one home for him to scratch and one for me. The kids watched it fascination as we scraped away the silver paint and begged for their own to do.
These days when he picks up scratch tickets he makes sure to get enough for the kids to do their own. I decided that if my kids love scratch tickets that much, other peoples children probably would too! So I decided to whip up a bunch of valentine scratch tickets for my kids to give out at school. If this sparks a craze of future gamblers, I’m only a little sorry! 😉
The first thing I did was design a card. I wanted a couple of different versions so that it might feel more like a surprise for the kids. I made one that has a high five as a prize, and one that has a fist bump. I was going to do hugging, but not everyone likes hugs and sometimes first graders don’t hug super gently…
Once I had the Valentine’s scratch tickets printed off I used these clear square labels to cover the prize. You need to cover the paper with something other wise it gets all destroyed when you go to scratch. To make the scratch-off solution, I mixed 1 part metallic acrylic paint with 1 part dish washing soap. I used a small, flat paintbrush to apply a thin coat of the solution onto the the label and let it dry for an hour. I then repeated with a second coat to completely cover the words.
Once they are dry, hand them out to your favorite people and scratch away! Just make sure your hands are ready for all the high fives and fist bumps coming your way!
