Valentine's Card - From our 1 Year Old to Daddy

I am sharing the Valentine's Card that I made with my daughter for her daddy. It didn't turn out exactly how I imagined, not like the Tissue Paper Heart, but it turned out the way she wanted it done, none the less.

My daughter has a new love for stickers so I imagined she would have a ball sticking stickers onto paper. She did, but she didn't follow my instructions. When will I learn that a 1 year old doesn't care about where you tell them to put things, they just have fun.

My original vision for this card was placing the heart stickers on the front, drawing in strings and saying "I love you like I love balloons." {She loves balloons with an extreme passion btw.} However, she decided to stick most of them on herself, and place the others randomly on the page before she asked for Mickey. Sigh...daddy will still love it!

In the beginning of the day, I got out the red, washable paint and I tried to get her handprints. Well, this was  the first time she touched paint, and she loved it! She wanted to smear it all over! So this was actually take two {I always have backup pieces of paper} and it was the best I could get.

#Tip - Do this in the morning. It will give the paper time to dry so that it was nice and neatly folded for when we placed the stickers on the top.

This was so easy to do and I know her daddy will love the effort put in by me her creating this card.

Suggestions for modification:

Infants - Skip the stickers and use edible paint to just paint the whole card. You can place a contact paper heart on the front and after the child uses the paints, remove the heart. You will have a paint silhouette.

Toddlers - See above. If your child will listen to instruction, maybe they will place them where you want them! Also, my suggestion is play with paint before you try to get a handprint.

Preschool -

• Have them try to stick the stickers so that the point is down so you can draw lines to make it a balloon. 
• Encourage them to practice writing their name on the inside with crayons or a chunky pencil. 
• Have them try fold the paper to practice with fine motor skills.

School Age - 

• Have them arrange stickers in the shape of a heart. Or allow them to chose the design, but still using stickers - this encourages fine motor skills.
• Encourage them to practice writing by writing the whole card out.

Have fun recreating this easy Valentine card with your kids. Feel free to share your creations with me on Facebook or Instagram. Happy crafting!