Make Your Valentine’s Card

Fancy making your Valentine's Day card? We have some beautiful images of Victorian Valentine’s cards from our collection for you to print out, cut out and use to create your very own design.

Victorian Valentine’s

The popularity of sending Valentine’s cards greatly increased in the Victorian period, thanks, in part, to the introduction of the Penny Post. Victorian Valentine’s cards were often made of a number of different materials, including lace, fringing, fabric and even human hair, which were layered, one on top of the other, much like a scrapbook. Pictures of flowers were popular, as were images of Cupid and hearts. Victorian cards were a lot smaller than those generally on sale today and came in lots of different shapes. Some cards even had elaborate or novelty features like pop-ups, music, scent and mechanical components.

‘To My Valentine’ Valentine Card c. 1890 (OB1995.166)

Make your own

Here are some beautiful images from Victorian Valentine’s cards in The Postal Museum’s collection for you to print out, cut out and use to create your very own Victorian-inspired Valentine’s card. You could include your own photographs, sketches or mementos to make the cards really personal.

Download this sheet (PDF)

We would love to see how your cards turn out or hear about any interesting cards you’ve sent or received yourself! Share your pictures with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

– Joanna Espin, Curator