During this time of the year the stores fill with Valentine candy and paper supplies.  You can get cards in every shape and size but you can not get them like these.  By these I mean homemade.  The ones you will send to grandmas and aunts but would not necessarily give them out to your school peers, unless you are a an amazing artist, which of course I am not.

To make these fun heart notes and cards you will need some scrap material.  I used folder dividers that I have gotten for a 1$ at Target, or you can reuse some wrapping paper, or if you want to get really crazy even foil.

Fold a piece of paper in half

Draw or trace a heart on a tracking paper, ours had a 7 inch diameter.  Does a heart have a diameter?  I know human heart does and it is about 32 cm.   But is that what it is called in a Mathematical Heart?

Anyway

Place the tracing paper on the paper you will use, cut out

Now it is time to fold.  Fold the two heart sides into the center

Fold the top of the heart down

making sure it touches the base of the triangle

Fold the bottom flop over

Use a sticker or tape to seal the flap

Cute right?

Now imagined if you used your kids drawings as a background.  Here is one by my 3 year old

Hers on the left, his on the right.  You can tell that she takes after her daddy, he after me.

Now let’s see if you remember

Sides down

Top fold

Flaps down

Blast Off !!!

My daughter was actually surprised that there was nothing in it, since you could easily attach a piece of flat candy or stickers.  She did however enjoy the entire process:

If you are still looking for more traditional prints here are some free ones I was able to find.  Keep in mind that some of these links go straight to the pdf file and may take a few minutes to load:

Valentine Day Cards

Modern Valentine Day Cards

Big Love Valentine

Brown Bag Valentine

More Valentines

Valentine Day Cup Wraps

Valentine Tea Bags

Valentine Birdseed Packets

Candy Bar Topper

Whether you are preparing for Chinese New Year, Superbowl, Valentines Day, Carnival or Birthday Bash here are some easy ways to decorate with the help of your kids.

Depending on the theme you can use newspaper ads, wrapping paper, kids drawings or even photos.

To make lanterns trim the ends of the paper

fold in half, cut strips of paper 2/3 way, leaving a top border

open the page up and glue the outside edges together, making a tubular lantern.

In order to make a star or a flower take another piece of paper

fold the paper backwards and forward

just like an accordion

until it folded into one strip

fold in half again

Cut the corner at an angle in order to make a star

unfold taping one side then the other together

Ta Da !!!!

To make a flower round the edge a bit when cutting

Here is your flower

and the rest of stars

These decorations only take a few minutes and you can use all kids of different paper to match your party theme.  Who said Chinese Lanterns need to be for New Years only, I am think they would look great sporting my favorite Superbowl team.  Now if only my team can deliver this Sunday.

Just in case you are one of these people organizing this week or you are waiting till actual spring or time for school to be out this is a perfect way to recycle your old crayons.  By old crayons I mean these broken pieces you find in the couch cushions, under beds and maybe even in the fridge. Yes these can be reused just by being melted.  Wax crayons are nothing more then wax, hardening agent and pigment therefore can be reused often.  You can even mold them into fun shapes, but be certain to read the rest of this post to do it correctly.

First you will need to take all your crayon pieces and clean them from paper, stickers or whatever else you may find stuck to them

You can use up your nails and hours of time trying to peel them or you can use a sharp object to cut a line through and remove with ease

Ta Da

Choose muffin tins or silicone baking tins, preheat oven to 250 deg.  These really cute ones I got from IKEA for a buck each.  Fun right?

Place the broken pieces in the tins and bake

You can certainly tell that today Mama run out of coffee, or in the words of Forrest Gump “stupid is as stupid does”.

I totally forgot that these were ice cube trays not silicone baking molds, like these.  It didn’t take long to realize that something other then wax was also melting.  If I drank a pot of coffee before 9 am like I usually do, I would have melted the wax on the stove top and pour them into molds, definately not put plastic in an oven like a doo doo bird.  I guess I could have also used fun candy molds.

Once they cooled off they looked really great and were fun to use.  They can be made in every shape possible, even graduation caps.  Not that a graduate needs crayons, unless you are graduating from preschool.  Anyway, I am on my way to buy some coffee, before anything else happens.

Its is winter and since it has been slightly warm out here, therefore  the weather is not cold enough to go skiing/sledding and it is too cold and muddy to go to the park.  Therefore we decided to make some rainy day fun inside.  Enter paratroopers, parasailers, paraskiers or any variations of parachute users.

We gathered plastic garbage bags and miniature animals

Somehow in my family there are no miniature soldiers, skiers or princesses only bugs, farm animals and dinosaurs.  In other words just the things you want airlifted into your land.  These airborne units look more like seven plagues then trained soldiers.

Attached the bag handles to a rope, string, or pipe cleaner

Tie it around the animal

Drop from heights.  I can imagine what my dog is thinking “from all those things she could be airlifting to me why is it a plastic toy, I would much more prefer a steak”  or “this woman is really crazy what will she think of next.  I surely hope a walk is next”

This can be so easily taken outside maybe to mini parachuting Olympics, or an excuse to have kids run down the hill.  Just like ski jumping position your troops on top of a hill and see which one takes it the furthest.  You can try it with a small  boat in the summer provided a wind is blowing across the pond.  Either way it is fun.