Kids Crafts: Make Your Own Scratch Heart Valentines

Scratch art was popular for a while at home when I had bought some kits from the store that came with a stylus and some stencils for creating colorful pictures on black papers: simply scratch out the black of the paper to reveal the colors underneath.

And then I came across this lovely post about DIY Scratch Book. Scratch fever took hold and we ended up doing some cards for this Valentine season.

Items Used:
Thick card stock paper (or glossy photo paper or even old photo prints)
brightly colored oil pastels
black tempera paint (we used a mix of metallic dark brown and black)
paint brush
stylus - toothpick or an old ballpoint pen that doesn't write anymore (we used small screwdrivers - flat and crosshead)

1. Use the oil pastels to add bright rich colors to the card stock paper. We used a long strip so we can cut it to size later.

2. Dilute the black tempera paint with a tiny bit of water and paint over this colored paper. Allow to dry completely. We started this project after dinner one evening and left the painted card stock by the vent overnight to dry. Of course, any dark color paint would work, but black makes the colors pop. I've tried white and light blue oil pastels underneath a dark blue painted layer and it looked fantastic for winter scene.

3. Then use the stylus to scratch out the paint in any pattern or design to reveal the colors underneath. The fun part for us was using just the various size heart cookie-cutters to create the designs we liked.

Each kid got to do one per guideline from me and one on their own. Of course, the guided ones are not as interesting as the ones they came up with.

Ana made this Heart Girl.

Og made this Heart Fish. Rather, he traced the hearts to a generic fish shape and asked me to add the finer touches needed to make it look more fish-like.

All in all, a fun activity which can be adapted to any holiday.