Showing posts with label Valentine's Day. Show all posts

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!

DIY Valentine's Card for Kids - All ages in Modifications | Managing a Home

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!

14 Healthy Days of Valentines

Let me start off by saying..

If you are my husband, do not read this post! You will ruin your surprises!

Ok, now that that's out of the way, let's get on with this post!

We are trying to be a bit healthier in our household, so when Valentine's Day comes around, we try to avoid the overpriced and often buttery restaurant meals and sugary chocolates and sweets by not celebrating the holiday. Well, now that we have a daughter, we need to start showing some love to the holiday. {pun intended}

Managing A Home | Healthy Valentine's Day Options - no sweets needed. Keep your New Year's Resolutions

I saw some crazy cute printables for significant others on Pinterest and on linky parties, but most of them included ideas for sugary and processed items that we are trying to avoid. So the search continued.

Then, I found these bad boys. They are super cute and offer healthy alternatives for daily gifts.

I went to the original site and only one of these were available to be clicked on and printed, so I decided to make them printable for you. Just click on the images above {each image has it's own link} to download and print for yourself.

I know, I know..there are only 12. For the other two days I plan on using these ideas:

I love this option with some much needed lip balm attached. We love Burt's Bees Lip Balm in our house. Head over to Five Little Chefs and print your own.

And for the final day/night February 14, I am going with this one found at Lou Lou Girls. {But instead of soda, I will get a mix and match 6 pack of beer for him}. I realize this isn't the "healthiest" option, but it's better than chocolate!
The Lou Lou Girls also have a toothbrush option in this post, which I thought about because my hubby wants a toothbrush at work. I was torn between that and the lip balm above. But chapstick won out.

There are so many other non-candy, non-sweet options. This will also help us all keep any weight loss New Year's Resolutions.

For more Valentine's Day inspiration, follow my Valentine's Day Pinterest board.

Have a healthy Valentine's Day!

Tissue Paper Valentine Heart

I love this age with my daughter. She is really starting to understand me and the world around her. I love playing with her and talking to her. One thing I am struggling with is finding ways to help her learn and grow - aside from just everyday activities and classes.

Having a teaching background, I feel like I want to be teaching her. But when I taught, I was used to Kindergarten and up. Even when I taught first grade, I felt like I was still lost as to what the students were capable of.

So I decided with my fresh start, I don't care what I think she is capable of. I am going to do tons of activities with her - no matter what I think she can do. I am going to push her limits and start doing more activities with her. {You benefit - think of all of the awesome posts!}

One thing I know she LOVES to do is tear apart tissue and tissue paper. So I found a way to let her go to town.

Tissue Paper Valentine Heart Craft - done by a Toddler. Modifications for all ages of kids | Managing a Home

Materials Needed:

Tissue Paper - I used leftover red and white from Christmas, then found some pink and purple when I cleaned my craft closet.
Card stock - any color you would like
Glue Stick
Scissors

First I gave her strips of the tissue paper to tear up. She loved this. She was all over tearing the paper to shreds. {I was following behind cleaning up the paper to use} She saw me putting the pieces into the container, and she started to help - she really does love to clean {I often wonder who's child she is..}. I had to tear some of the tissue paper into smaller shreds but most of them I left alone.

{No pictures - her arms were moving too fast for my camera!! But you could see her little fingers working hard.}

Then, I put the card stock on the table and we {her hand first, mine on top} spread the glue all over the middle of the paper. I told her to take the paper out and put it here. She did! In handfuls!

Then she tried to put it back in but I showed her that most of them were stuck. We pressed down on the tissue paper and then shook off the pieces that didn't stick.

I then cut out a heart from the middle of the page. She wanted to do more so we ended up doing three {that is all the paper I had out} and then she was off to play with her Little People.

Suggestions for modification:

Use contact paper for the tissue and cut the heart. Hang in the window for a sun catcher.
Glue onto a card for a special Valentine
Attach string and hang from the ceiling or make a mobile with multiple.

Infants - Make it the sun catcher or a mobile yourself and let them observe. The colors will help stimulate their little brains. Older infants could drop pieces of tissue paper onto the glue.

Toddlers - See above. Make sure that you are naming the colors to reinforce them. We will also use them daily to reinforce color names {at least of pink, purple, red and white}

Preschool - Have them still do the tissue paper tear and glue. Then draw a line for the heart and allow them to try and cut along the line using safety scissors.

School Age -

Allow them independence to choose colors, glue and cut on their own.
Have them cut squares of the tissue paper and encourage them to make a pattern on the paper.

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

For more Valentine fun, follow my Valentine's Day board on Pinterest.