February 2024
Having a baby is exciting for a lot of reasons. I think of all the amazing firsts to happen. Smiles, laughs, walks, words, having to prepare 15-30 individual Valentines for a roaring class of 3-year-olds. That last one kinda snuck up on me, but I took a chance to be creative. Instead of purchasing a box of character cards, we are making some creative, easy DIY Valentines at the last minute.
For the moms whose kids receive these, please know that I am holding zero offense that they are ending up in the trash just as quickly as the $2 Paw Patrol box I could have just snagged at the store.
I am well aware of the number of art projects that are sent home with our child for us to cherish until the end of time. This is not one of those pieces.
There are so many things we think we’ll do as moms, as if keeping a small human with huge emotions alive is not enough. Logically, we take the easy wins as we need them. Prepackaged snacks, chocolate as a bribe and screen-time to fill in the gaps.
In this moment, however, I had the energy to set something up and encourage creativity. This filled the space between school and dinner that is normally occupied by chaos.
Step 1. Paper and Shapes
Think back to kindergarten, or whenever it was that they allowed us to use scissors minimally supervised, and cut out some shapes.
Based on the holiday, hearts seemed like the logical choice.
Although, had I had any more time I may have fancied it up with stars or suns.
I made about 18 of these perfect little signs of love and then grabbed the cling wrap.
Step 2. Mess-Free Environment
Using painting tape and saran wrap, I laid out a square big enough to lay all my hearts flat.
Once the little man was home, we took a few of our paint colors and made little drops on each heart.
My original thought was to put way more paint. In hindsight, I am very happy we went with small amounts.
After every piece had at least 3 colors drizzled on it, I added two more pieces of saran wrap to cover them all.
Finally, I taped all the edges down. Since this is a pretty quick project, I knew that if there was any paint spill, I would be able to clean it up pretty quickly, so I tried not to go too crazy with the setup.
Step 3. Paint and Dry
Every kid is different. Some love to feel the goo between their fingers and others don’t.
J is a little bit of both. He’ll squeeze a handful of peanut butter if left unattended, but has no interest in finger painting.
This was a wonderful work-around. After some cautious pokes, he went all in smearing colors from one heart to the next.
Just as quickly as it started, he was finished and ready to move on to the next thing.
Next up was getting rid of some of the globs that were still there, but that was easy to take on while I started to clean up.
Carefully removing the tape and the top layer of saran wrap, I made a little ball of plastic wrap and started blotting the areas where I noticed large amounts of paint.
Once that was finished, I let them sit and dry overnight.
Step 4. Add something sweet.
If J were just a little bit older and enjoyed trying to write, I would have had him scribble a letter or two onto each heart.
But, since these are last-minute DIY valentines, I took the next part on solo.
I added his name to the front and tied a pack of organic fruit snacks to the back.
Finally, after 30 long minutes (not including dry time) of a kind-of enjoyable, creative, and free project, we were ready for the Valentines’s Day Party.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Update, we tried something a little different for 2025 Valentine’s Day – still just as easy!