Valentine's Day may be the same date every year, but that doesn't stop it from sneaking up on me. I had visions of me gathering nifty crafting supplies in advance and setting up the kids with everything they needed to make beautiful valentines for their classmates. But then, suddenly it is 2 days before the exchange at school—and we haven't even started! I panic.
This morning I received an email from Forest Ethics with ideas for making valentines out of junk mail paper. I think with the right selection of pieces, it could actually look good. I saw a little friend passing out some homemade cards the the teachers at preschool this morning, and while I am not sure if junk mail was the paper, it was a collage from scraps and looked really gorgeous.
But back to my panic—this afternoon I figured I had about 2 hours total for my son to make 30 valentines for his classmates (he goes to a very 'homemade-preferred' style school). Collages from reused material fell to the wayside and instead I bought a cute valentine kit at Paper Source. Feeling quite relieved, I then learned that the teacher has another plan. She asked each child to make only 2 valentines for some kind of exchange.
What a relief! 2 is so much more manageable than 30. I scrapped the kit idea (I'll return that tomorrow). Instead we decided to sew felt hearts together and fill them with lambswool and lavender.
I'm glad that in the end we have some nice, homemade valentines made from natural materials, but it was a close call. I'd love to hear what other people are doing for valentine projects. Maybe I'll be more prepared for next year. Leave a comment or email a photo.
1 comment:
This is what we did: http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=11585
Our school is pretty anti-sugar, etc. too, so I decided not to go that route. But I was surprised that everyone else did! She came home with candy galore!
The hearts were super easy and a great way to get rid of all of those broken crayon bits, although to make 18 of them took a lot of crayons! I had to sacrifice some of our whole ones, too. I used an X-Acto to get the wrappers off, and that part wasn't too bad. I did have some "cheap" crayons as well as some "washable" ones, and I think they melted a little differently than the true Crayolas. Luckily 4-5 year olds don't care!
Happy belated Valentine's Day! xoxo
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