Valentine's Day crafting and inspiration

When it comes to crafting, my two young kids love anything where they can get their hands dirty, but I don't know of too many Valentine's Day crafts where we can do that. Fortunately, I found a way around this dilemma. We did get quite dirty with the paint but still managed to produce a wreath that my kids proudly hung up in our home.

I found the wreath form at the thrift store for a $1 a couple weeks ago fully intending to use it for a crafting activity with the kids. I was thrilled when I found an idea for wreath crafting over at Bloesem Kids and hopped right on over to the Little Pinwheel blog for directions, which basically required that the kids dip their hands in paint and produce several hand prints.

No problem, just put hand gently in paint.

Yaay! That was fun!

The kids were having so much fun that I realized they wouldn't be content with just producing a few handprints. I pulled out some large pieces of white paper and told them, "Just go to town. Do whatever you want with the paint." They had fun wiping their hands all over the paper, producing swirls and masses of paint.

Papa was gone during the hand painting so, in lieu of that, my son simply traced his hand for a hand silhouette we planned to put on the wreath.

As it turned out, our hand print wreath did not look as nice as the one on the Little Pinwheels blog, so I decided to try something else. With the kids' permission to cut up their artwork, I pulled out a heart paper cutter that I've had for a few years and cut out several hearts from their paintings.

I really liked how many of the hearts had a velvety texture to them.

The kids' favorite part was gluing the hearts to the wreath. This actually took them at least 30 minutes, but they were surprisingly enthusiastic the whole time.

My favorite part is that they worked well together during the whole process, with minimal instruction or interference from me.

We had so much fun that I've got my eye on a couple other Valentine's Day crafts. I would like to make this mobile that originally appeared in Wondertime. This "lovemobile" has the words "I love when we ... " on the top part and each of the different things you enjoy about that person written on each heart on the lower part of the mobile. You can find instructions here.

This love hanger caught my eye for its simplicity and ease of crafting since you could make something like this with items that you already have around your house. Find instructions here.

I'm fantasizing about making some of these lavender-filled heart sachets for some special people in our lives. You can find directions for these cards here.


Or how about these simple but pretty tissue flowers? Find the instructions here.

If you find yourself terribly short on time, yet pining for a little Valentine's Day decorating, then why not grab a few items around the house that evoke that touch and place them someplace where you can see them everyday?

Here's what I did on a recent morning with some favorite red and pink items:

One of my favorite kids' books, my daughter's baby shoes, her baptismal thank you card and a set of letter stencils.

Notebook bought while on my honeymoon in Paris.

Tiny red books, miniature hourglass and an origami paper box that holds my memory sticks and other small paraphernalia on my desk.

I'd love to know if you do anything special to add a Valentine's Day touch to your decor, or if you have any ideas for easy Valentine's Day crafts.