Mother’s Day is rapidly approaching and if you’re running out of time or simply not inclined to spend 6 bucks on a cheesy card, you can download a cheesy Cagey Bee card for free! I drew these squirrel cuties in my sketchbook with ink, scanned them into the old ‘puter and then added the color digitally. All you have to do is print, fold and sign. Ta da!

I got some lovely comments after I posted my last printable card for Valentine’s Day and I’m tickled to do it again, thinking of all the happy moms out there smiling at my silly squirrels. My mom didn’t raise me to spend money frivolously, so I’m sure she’ll approve of this homemade sentiment. Like me, she’s the practical sort that would rather receive a new book versus a bunch of flowers that are just going to die in a week. On the other hand, my dad? Total romantic. In 30 years of marriage I don’t think he’s ever come home from a business trip empty handed (& he travels several times a month). Such a sweetie!

OK…so this is what you need to do!

1) Get some thick paper or card stock (not *too* thick unless your printer can handle that kind of thing).

2) Open the PDF file for the inside of the card & print. Choose “borderless” printing if you have that option, otherwise it will may give you a message about clipping the edges. That should be fine. There’s extra room for trimming off later anyway.

3) Give the paper a few seconds to dry.

4) Open the PDF file for the outside of the card. Once your paper is dry with the inside greeting, flip it over & then pop it back into the printer to print the outside of the card.

5) Fold in the middle & trim off any excess. That’s it!

Click here to download the inside of the card.

Click here to download the outside/front of the card.

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A note on printing both sides of the paper: your printer may work differently, but for me, I feed the paper in face up. That means that when I print the INSIDE of the card, the greeting will show up on the lower half of the page. Perfect. When I flip it over, I have to flip it end over end so that the greeting text is being fed into the machine first, but FACE DOWN. Like this:

Download the PDF here

I’ve been doodling little characters in my sketchbook lately and thought they’d make for pretty darn cute Valentines. I hate the cheesy 5 dollar cards you see this time of year, so instead my boys are going to be getting these little notes tucked into their pockets and lunches on the big day. I thought you might enjoy them too, so feel free to download the PDF and print ‘em out yourself!

printed on card stock & cut out

I’m not one to go all out with big romantic gestures on the 14th, mostly because I like to think of myself as too cool of a chick to fall for such a commercial holiday, but after being in a relationship for 9 years, I now appreciate Valentine’s Day for what it is – a reminder to take a moment to think about the people you love. This doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic love; some of the longest lasting & most rewarding love stories are ones between good friends, sisters, hell even our pets! I still think society in general puts far too much emphasis on the entire notion of coupling, but once you’re in that couple, it’s a lot of work. Day in, day out there are a million tiny moments that come with sharing your space with another person who doesn’t share your exact brain & hormones & emotions that have the potential to lead to a fight. Or an eye roll. Or a snotty tone. It’s remarkably easy for people who have been together a long time treat each other worse than they would ever treat a complete stranger.

So, I think it’s kind of nice to take a day to remind ourselves that love can be silly and fun and yes, romantic too. That it’s worth it be to kind and gentle with each other. And that sometimes it’s worth it to cut out a simple paper heart and give it to someone who makes you smile.

Edited to add: If you’ve never downloaded a PDF before, you may need to install a program to open it. The most common (& free) one is Adobe Acrobat.