Send the sweetest February greeting via paper pigeon with this adorable free printable Valentine craft for kids.
Well, Valentine’s Day has totally gone to the birds over here! Between the cuckoo clocks and this new little buddy, we are determined to fly by and deliver some printable Valentine’s Day love your way this year!
Meet “Tweet-heart” (shoutout to our Instagram friends for the adorable name recommendations).
This sweet little messenger pigeon is ready & willing to deliver a mini-message to your besties or beloveds in his tiny satchel.
Our free printable messenger pigeon PDF has a full-color template page, plus a black & white template page in case you’d rather color paint or watercolor your own.
There is a “left” and right” Tweet-heart (for those of you who might want to mount yours on cardboard and make it fly as we did) as well as a pattern for the mini envelope and note.
To make your own Messenger Pigeon Valentine, you’ll need:
BASIC SUPPLIES:
- 1 or 2 pages of heavy cardstock
- Scissors
- Glue
- A piece of ribbon or twine
- Our messenger pigeon Valentine free printable PDF
OPTIONAL SUPPLIES FOR FLIGHT:
- A piece of corrugated cardboard
- A long piece of thick string or twine
How to Make Messenger Pigeon Valentines – DIY Instructions:
Print and cut out the pigeon templates.
Print out the desired template pages onto heavy cardstock and cut out each of the pieces.
Fold and glue the small envelope.
For the envelope, fold along the dotted lines. Pull the bottom of the envelope in, then fold the sides on top and glue. You can add the heart to the tip of your envelope top for a little added luuurrrve!
Add a ribbon to the envelope to make it a mini mail bag.
Cut a 4- 5 inch piece of ribbon or twine and glue each side to the inside of the top fold to create your satchel strap.
Write your valentine on the small note included!
Write your note, slip it in the satchel, and seal it with a kiss (or…a tiny dab of glue – or both)!
You can give this as is, mount it on a colorful sheet of construction paper, OR even make a version that “flies” as we did (!). FYI: This is a fantastic STEAM project for kids.
Make Your Paper Pigeon Fly!
Fair warning: I am going to have a hard time explaining the steps for this, but I’m going to give it my best go. If you have questions, be sure to leave them in the comments, and I’ll try to clarify exactly what we did.
Flight Instructions Step 1: Glue one side of your pigeon to a piece of corrugated cardboard. Make sure you glue it down with the corrugation aligned as shown above so it will fly upright!
Flight Instructions Step 2:Â Using a good pair of scissors or utility knife, cut out around your pigeon.
Flight Instructions Step 3: Flip your mounted pigeon over and glue the mirror-image pigeon printable on the opposite side of the cardboard.
Flight Instructions Step 4:Â Thread a strong piece of thread or twine through the corrugated cardboard (the dotted line indicates the direction). You’re going to need to tie one end of the string to a “finish point” and the other side to a higher “launch point”.
Flight Instructions Step 5: We created a pulley system so we could pull our messenger pigeon up and down, sharing notes back and forth.
Using the same technique for threading twine through the cardboard, create a “pull” cord by threading a separate piece of twine through in the same way (same spot, same direction), but then threading it back UP through the next level of corrugation, towards the launch point – in fact, you want the piece of twine to reach ALL the way back to the launch point.
From there, Â we tied the pull cord to a long piece of cardboard tube we could use as a handle and looped the cord around a 5-pound handweight (so our pull tie would stay in place and wouldn’t be pulled to the ground when we weren’t holding onto it).
More Unique Valentine Ideas for Kids
In need of more unique Valentine’s Day ideas for kids? For February afternoon or classroom fun that doesn’t require the usual focus on passing out valentines, visit our Valentine’s Day travel adventure activity.
Use our low-prep idea list (plus a free printable bundle!) for a kids’ Valentine’s Day countdown through simple acts of kindness.
Or for itsy-bitsy love monsters, try one of these uber-creative, easy Valentine-themed sensory bin ideas.
GETTING READY TO TRY this?
I love seeing all the ways people make these ideas their own! If you're sharing the results of one of our projects, mention or tag me with @barleyandbirch, or share it in the comments of one of our Pinterest project pins.
I am really trying to conceptualize how you did the pulley and I can’t figure it out! Are there 3 strings passed through the pigeon? The original one from the instructions and then one passed through again and then back the opposite way? And the original string is fixed to a launching and finishing point? Also what are you pulling on to make the pigeon move back and forth if it is tied to a cardboard tube? haha! Sorry for all the questions!
Thanks!