Making Valentines

In December when Christmas sales were going on my mom purchased the "coolest" machine called a Cricut and some cartridges to go with it (for her daycare business and crafty projects). It is basically a teacher/crafty person's dream as it quickly and cutely, I might add, makes any size die-cut you could fathom.
Anyway, a few weeks ago when my mom came to visit she brought the machine for me to experiment with, and to help me prepare some crafts for a Valentine's Party I'm throwing this Friday for my small group friends and all their kiddos (we are expecting 19 children! Wow, it'll be a full house). Anyway, I wanted to have the machine cut out heart designs and the names of each child so they could all make a Valentine place mat at the party. Let me tell you, I've had so much fun playing around with this nifty thing. I've had to make two runs to the craft store to stock up on more card stock already.
I decided to make the Valentine's that my kiddos will give out this year with the machine while I have it in my possession (my mom ended up letting me keep the Cricut for a few weeks since I was having such a hay day with it).
Emilio had to have Valentine's for school and for our little party, and Gabi just needed them for the party. Here is what we came up with.......

The kids used their Do a Dot markers to decorate the scalloped hearts (made by the Cricut of course). I used the machine as well to cut out the monkeys and pigs (both fav. animals of the kids obviously). Emilio had to sign his name to all 16 Valentines for school, so I let him off the hook on the ones for the party on Friday and just printed his name on the computer instead.
I wish I would have had this machine when I was teaching.....it would have been invaluable.