Spreading a little love on Valentine’s

With a pretty much blank calendar hanging on my wall at the moment, I decided we needed a little project. In ‘normal’ years, we’ve never done much for Valentine’s; the day sort of just creeps up and then is a rush to get a last minute card or gift. But Valentines Day doesn’t have to be about gifts, sometimes quality time is all you need! Here are some of my favourite Valentines Day crafts to keep the kids entertained!

This year the children and I decided to make a window display. A little bit like the rainbows in lockdown 1 and the snowflakes we made at Christmas. We live at the end of a very quiet road with a lot of elderly neighbours. The window displays have put a smile on their faces and we wanted to spread a little love during this strange and for so many a lonely time.

I thought I’d share some ideas and hopefully share a photo of our window display at the end of this blog. Fingers crossed it will turn out ok. Note: When I say Day 1, Day 2 it doesn’t mean we did an activity each day. There have definitely been days where we muddled through, ate snacks, tackled home schooling and where I had a few Bailey’s at the end of the day! Some activities like the threading did take a while and was one we would do for a few minutes at a time. Please don’t get the impression that I’m organised, that my children sit and actually do an activity for long or that there aren’t tears and stroppy moods along the way!

Here are the activities we used and I hope they give you some ideas. It would definitely put a smile on my face if you shared a photo or comment at the end of this blog.

Day 1: Heart Printing

I used this idea in my Little Learners classes last February and is a simple and effective way to print hearts. All you need is an empty kitchen roll, some paint and paper. I cut the empty kitchen roll into 2 parts and then bent part of the circle at 2 ends to create a heart. Best described by looking at the picture below.

We also looked round the house for heart shaped objects and we found a heart shaped container and cookie cutters. These were great. We decided on red and gold paint. All you do is dip the kitchen roll into the paint and print.

These look really effective and great for little hands. You could use the finished piece as wrapping paper too.

Day 2: Threading

I have a bag of wool which just lives in our craft box and hardly gets used. We decided to make simple heart using wool. I drew and cut out a heart as seen below and then the children picked the colours they wanted. My son picked all red and my daughter went for a rainbow theme. You could also add beads onto it.

This activity proved to be a fab little go to in between homeschooling lessons or to chill in the afternoon. We popped some music on and had a sing song too. You could try other shapes, numbers and letters.

Day 3: An added extra…

As part of Children’s Mental Health week my daughter’s home schooling was focused on expressing themselves. She chose to paint and spent ages painting a rainbow and a page full of dots. It was all calm until she decided to have that moment of having to mix ALL the colours we had used and use her hands. When the paintings eventually dried we cut them into hearts and added to our display.

And here it is… the window display! Hope it brings a few smiles to the neighbours.

Thank you for reading all about my favourite Valentines Day Crafts!

Love Lene x