Elizabeth's preschool class is having a Valentine's Day party on Tuesday (2/15)...and the kids are encouraged to bring Valentines to share with their classmates! So, without even thinking about the preparation this would require on my part, I blurt out: "Hey Elizabeth...do you want to MAKE your OWN Valentines?!?!" (Silly Mommy! About 2.2 seconds after it came out of my mouth, I reminded myself that she is four. And that she has a baby sister who wants to do EVERYTHING that she does...so I would need to be sure this make-your-own project is very kid friendly!)
We had planned to go to Target yesterday afternoon after naps, but, naturally, Ashley decided that this would be the day she took a 3.5 hour afternoon nap!!! Seriously.
So, by the time she woke up, it was getting closer to dinner time, and E helpfully suggested: "Mommy...maybe you could just go while I'm sleeping and get all the stuff and surprise me in the morning!" Ha!
Hmmmm...actually...not a bad idea!
So I did just that, and returned home with the following:
• A pad of 6" x 9" construction paper (which I made sure included plenty of sheets of red and white paper that I immediately removed for use with our project!)
• A pack of 15 paper doilies (b/c you can't make proper homemade Valentines without "LACE"!)
• Two sheet of stickers...monkeys holding hearts! (See previous posts for the monkey explanation!)
• A large gift bag (covered in hearts in red/white/pink of varying sizes...I cut out the hearts and spread them out on the table so that E could choose which ones she wanted to use and glue them onto the cards)
• A package of glue sticks
• A box of pre-packaged Highlights "Hidden Picture" Valentines (initially I bought these as a "back up"...just in case our handmade Valentine idea didn't work out. But E LOVES hidden pictures from her Highlights magazines, so we found a way to incorporate them into the handmade version!)
When I returned home and dumped all the supplies out onto the kitchen table, Peter shook his head and laughed at me ("What have you gotten yourself into?")...but, to his credit, when he saw me sitting down with a pair of scissors and going to work on cutting out the hearts from the gift bag, he grabbed a spare pair and joined me! Now THAT's what I call a supportive husband and SUPERDAD!!!! :-)
I tore out the red and white sheets of construction paper and folded them in half to make cards. And then discovered that the "Hidden Picture" Valentines would be a perfect fit to glue onto the inside of the cards! Hooray!
I made a "sample" card to show E the basic idea and left all the supplies on the table for her to view in the morning.
When she came down for breakfast, she was SO EXCITED that she wanted to get started on it all right away! But I did manage to convince her to eat breakfast first!
We moved the materials to the coffee table so that it would be easier for the girls to reach, and then we began! (I made sure we had enough cards for Ashley to get in on the action too! And boy did she! That girl LOVES her some glue stick!)
The process went a little bit like this:
Monkey sticker FIRST! (Of course!) And then once the monkey sticker was placed on the cover, E would embellish the rest with paper lace, heart cut-outs, and heart stickers....collage-style! The beauty of the collage layout, of course, is that there is no "wrong" way to do it!...and I could tell that my little perfectionist appreciated that creative freedom!
Next, we would open the card and glue a hidden picture card to the inside! (This was A's specialty--particularly b/c she could slather the glue stick ALL over the card and she loved that!) And then E would turn it over and pound it onto the card to make it stick!
We made 15 cards in all--one for each student in her class...and another two for the teachers!
Fun morning!
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