Valentine Craftin' With Sophie

On Monday night before Valentine's Day, Will and Craig went off to karate while Sophie and I stayed home and did a few, fun, crafty activities. I saw this super easy idea on Pinterest (linked from this blog): heart stamping with a toilet paper tube. Flatten the tube lengthwise and then bend one crease inward to create a heart shape. Wrap a piece of tape (any kind) around the tube to hold the shape and let child "stamp" paint onto paper with it. I gave her a large pink heart to stamp on and some red and white paint.

Fun!

Next, I gave her a strip of paper with the letters of her name written inside of traced hearts. I also gave her some foam, heart stickers wrapped inside of a paper pouch like a present. Each of the stickers had a letter of her name on them and she had to match up the letters and stick them down. We've always taught her to spell her name in a sort of sing-song voice so it's easier to remember and she's got it down now.

Peeling paper backing... good fine motor work.

Spelling her name to me... She loved this and carried it all around. Now it hangs on her bedroom door like a sign.

And finally, I've been meaning to try making melted crayon molds for literally YEARS. Don't know why I never got around to it, but finally we did. There are about a bazillion recipes out there to follow, but they're all basically the same. Peel the crayons (I found the paper of off-brand crayons - NOT CRAYOLA - comes off much easier), chop into pieces, place in a mold and bake.

Sophie helped me peel paper briefly. Then I chopped and gave her the tray back like this. Tons of people were claiming to find silicone heart trays in the Target dollar bins, but I never did. So I ordered mine from Amazon for like $7.99 and it's good for freezer or oven. Probably a rip-off, but serves me right for being last minute. The size of hearts was smaller than I anticipated but in the end, it was perfect for our project.

Dividing up the pieces. I wasn't sure how many crayons to use and it didn't initially seem like that much, but I ended up making three trays worth of hearts - 30 total. I'm saving them for next Valentine's Day. :)

Into the 200 degree oven, on a foil-lined cookie sheet, for 10 minutes.

When they come out, the tops look totally blended and not what you expect. But once they cool and you pop them out of the tray, the bottom sides look really neat.

I found a template for a Valentine with the Earth background and a message so I just printed them on regular paper and glued them to a bigger card stock circle. Then I used "Zots" (glue dots" - lots of them - to stick the crayon to the center of the paper.

Sophie only gives Valentine's to her friends at the sitter's so we only needed to make five cards.

On Valentine's Day, I sent a tray of cookies along with both kids Valentine's cards to the babysitter's house.