Valentines Crafting

One of the great things about blogging is being able to look back at things you did in previous years. Last year we made a Valentines display using the boys artwork cut in to heart shapes. I didn't file these away with the other art work but kept it with my seasonal decorations so I could find them easily. I thought they would look great on the heart shaped photo holder I bought from a car boot a couple of weeks ago for just £2! I had no idea where I was going to put it, but for that price decided to find somewhere! So for now I've put it up on the kids art wall with their hearts from last year and a few old photos that had come out of frames ages ago. Daddy's not sure about it possibly because its pictures of him!

Our Art Wall.....

We have also been doing lots of valentines crafting in the last week..... The boys had lots of fun making some valentines cards for their 'girlfriends' this did include Nanny, Grandma & Daniels pre-school teacher, but its still a lot of cards for 2 boys so young to be giving! To decorate the cards we used some foam stamps & some heart shaped play dough cutters, with paint soaked sponges. This was the first time we had tried the sponge technique & it really helped limit the amount of paint on the stamps.

We also decided to make some Valentines trees, or Valentines Christmas Trees as Daniel (3) kept calling them. We painted some cardboard cones from our junk box, one had already been painted in the past so came out a darker shade. Apparently they needed glitter so to save on the mess we added some glitter to the red & pink paint. Later that day, once dry, the boys decorated the trees with various bits from our craft cupboard, Using PVA to stick them on.

For more valentines fun take a look at these posts from last year:
Bubble Wrap Heart Printing
Valentines Butterflies

x Jo x

P.s. Don't forget there is still time to enter our chrome letter competition!

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Valentines Toilet Roll Butterflys

Continuing with our letter B activity's, we decided to make some toilet roll butterfly's. We were inspired by several ideas that I had pinned, like this bee, this caterpillar, & this butterfly.

While Joseph (4) was out on an errand with Daddy, Daniel (2.5) painted 2 toilet roll tubes with our red glitter paint. With the first one he left several bits unpainted so I touched these up for him, then on the second one he spent ages making sure it was all covered. Next I cut out 2 sets of heart shaped wings from pink card, I used some scrap paper to make a template, so I could fold it & get a symmetrical shape.

Daniel then used our heart shaped pastry/cookie cutters that we used with our valentines play dough last week, to print heart shapes on to the wings. He was enjoying the painting so much that he also ended up making 2 cards!

The next day we all assembled the butterfly's, we used double sided tape to stick the wings on & made some antennae with a silver pipe cleaner then added some eyes (always a favourite). To decorate, I put out some shiny valentines confetti, and we also added some buttons from my stash to continue the B theme.

Both boys enjoyed making there butterfly's, which (once dry) did several laps around the kitchen before landing among our heart display wall.

x Jo x

Bubble Wrap Hearts & Valentines Playdough

We decided to have a go at the bubble wrap printing that we saw over at Learning 4 Kids, to incorporate B for Bubble (our next letter, for letter A activity's see here), and an activity for Valentines Day.

 They both enjoyed using heart shaped bubble wrap to print, we used red glitter paint & plain red paint & 2 different shaped hearts. We wouldn't use coloured paper again as the boys printing didn't really stand out however the couple I did as an example on white paper looked much more effective.

As our bubble wrap looked nice painted I placed it on a piece of paper (bubble side out) to dry, I would do this again as it stuck to the paper & looked very effective being 3D. Once the paint was dry I cut out the heart shapes to use as a display on our kitchen/diner wall.

Daniel was enjoying the paining so much he used up the last of the paint with a brush, this made a nice dry brush effect. I used this painting along with several other random drawings & paintings sent home from nursery to add to our heart display.

 

Later the same day we decided to continue the Valentines theme & cut some hearts out of play dough. We love play dough & I did used to make a lot of our own however for Josephs 3rd birthday he was given a huge set & we have still only opened half of the pots that came with it & they are still going strong over a year later. For his 4th birthday he asked for the Play-Doh Candy Cyclone (which they both love) It came with a pot of white & a pot of bright pink, which over time has become this cool pink marbled play dough. It was perfect to use our heart cutters with.

 Valentines day isn't as big in here in the UK as it is over in the US. It tends to be just for couples & those looking for love, rather than to show love and appreciation to people you know. However its still nice to do some activity's with the boys, even though they wont be giving gifts & cards to friends etc. I mentioned to daddy about making some cards for Nanny & Grandma & he thought this was very weird! How do you celebrate where you live?

x Jo x