Kids Crafts: Valentine's Day Crafts

Valentine's Day has always been a low-key/no-stress event in our house even before the kids arrived. For the last couple of years, since Ana is interested in crafts, we do some themed craft activities around certain celebrations. And, since Valentine's Day has come to signify a celebration of friendship and love, we make something to give to friends and loved ones to show that we care.

This year, we made Salt Dough Hearts. The procedure is the same as described in the Salt Dough Creatures post. We used a cookie-cutter to cut the shape, poked a hole for the ribbon we wanted to add later on, and baked it. After it cooled overnight, we painted it red. Then, Ana added From: and To: for her friends.




We also made heart cards using card stock paper and one of our favorite techniques: rubber cement masking. Ana loves watercolors. She had fun combining rubber cement masking with salt sprinkled painting to make a few sheets of paper. We let it dry. Then, cut into hearts. Ana meticulously wrote the names on each card.



The technique of folding the paper in half and cutting a "question mark shape" as Ana puts it, is an easy way to get neat little hearts cut out from paper. But, card stock being thick, and not wanting a fold in the middle of the beautiful card, we went with tracing out the heart shape and cutting them out, even if slightly more tedious.



Oggie got into the spirit and wanted to "make hearts" too. So, we went with the old technique of ripping tissue paper and gluing them on several layers to make a thicker tissue paper sheet as described in the Paper Chain Fairies, Fairy Flower Chain and Fairy Wings post.

Rip tissue papers (various colors, patterns) - this is the only part Oggie really enjoyed - layer them on a plastic sheet and glue on more layers to get a thicker colorful ripped tissue paper. Allow to dry completely. Peel off the plastic. Cut out the shapes.