The kids and I had a great time putting together fun valentines for their classes and since it is still February I thought I would share the things we made.

Both kids are enrolled at our local cooperative preschool and one of the requirements for valentines day was that all valentines were handmade.  They didn’t have to be elaborate but did need to be something that involved the kids.  Because I am into all things crafty I figured this would be a fun opportunity to involve the kids in making something fun for their classmates.  With Sophie I knew she would help make all 20 valentines but Ben was another story, being only 19 months doesn’t help staying focused long enough to make 22 valentines.

Before we could get down to making valentines I thought it was only fitting that we made some valentines shirts.  I was really inspired by the Negative Space Heart Bag on Living with the Punks.  I knew a similar more toddler friendly options could be done with my kiddos since we try not to use markers too much.  I learned the hard way that the walls need decoration, especially with black marker 🙂

 

The process for the shirts is really straight forward.  You cut the shape you want left blank out of freezer paper.  If you aren’t familiar with freezer paper it has a paper side and a wax side and can be found along side the foil and saran wrap.  Once you have your shape you just iron it onto the blank shirt with the waxy side down.

Since I find paint to be a bit better for my kids I just looked through my supplies and found a few different pink paints and fabric medium.  When you mix 2 parts paint to 1 part fabric medium you are essentially making fabric paint.  I usually just eye ball it when mixing them together and have always had success with the finished product not being too stiff and the paint holding up to repeated washing.

 

The kids each got a foam paint brush and I let them go wild.  Sophie had a great time covering the shirt with paint.  I made sure to help her with the edge around the heart so that it would stand out when the paper was removed.  Once the paint is dry to the touch you can peel the freezer paper off the shirt and you are left with a great negative space design.

The kids loved the shirts and I think they really enjoyed making them.  Although Ben is still a little too small because he kept trying to eat the paint 🙂

Now that we had shirts for the occasion we got down to business.  For Sophie’s valentines it was really important to me that she helped as much as she could.  When I came across the kids sewing valentine idea from Haley of Welcome to the Mouse House I knew it would be perfect for Sophie.  She loves using my sewing machine with me so why not cut some hearts out of paper she chose and sew them to cardstock.

We parked ourselves on the floor while Benny napped one day and got to sewing.  For every card Sophie picked which stitch she wanted and then away she went.  We managed to get through all 20 cards before she started loosing interest which is a great success if you ask me.

 

She was so excited to hand them out to friends and especially proud of the work she did on all of them.

The last part of my valentines crafting was for Ben’s class and because the kids in his class range from 1-2 1/2 I knew the kids would love a glitter sensory bottle.

All it takes to put together a glitter sensory bottle is a container, water, food colouring, glitter and glycerin.  Just fill the container with water, add a drop of food colouring, glitter and then glycerin until the glitter floats in the container.

Add a cute tag and you have a quick and easy valentine that kids of all ages will love.