Valentine’s Craft Ideas

We’ve had a go at making some Valentine’s crafts that we can hang up in the house and appreciate all your round.

I searched for a nice concentric heart shape online and printed it but you could of course do it freehand. I traced the hearts on to a Babipur cardboard box and cut them out. We used the Okonorm bright finger paints and spoke a lot about colours of the rainbow. We made a plan of which heart would be which colour and I deliberately left the purple and orange hearts until last so we could look at colour mixing. Jack loves using these paints, they are so thick and gloopy. He tried using brushes but always ends up painting his hands and smearing the hearts with his fingers.

Messy Art Fun

Rather than putting newspaper on the table I put a couple of sheets of A3 thick paper. Jack could experiment with using his hands and brushes on the paper as well. We mixed the orange and purple on the paper and then used a brush to scoop it up on to the card.

When all of the hearts had dried properly I glued them together and cut a small slit at the top to thread some thread through.

OkoNorm Clay Hearts

Next we had fun with the Okonorm modelling clay. It’s very soft and easy to model. We just tried simple hearts to stick with the valentines theme. Both boys really loved how they could squish the clay and shape it easily – I love that it doesn’t dry out and can be reused over and over.

Rainbow Hearts Hanging Decorations

I printed some hearts after searching online; again you could freehand I just had some time to kill and starting searching for heart shapes. I printed them on to thin card just to make them a bit more robust. The boys coloured them using the Crayon Rocks pebbles. They fit easily in their small hands and provide lovely strong colours. I cut out the hearts and glued them back to back on some string. I thought they may spin round and so wanted the colours to be on both sides.

Jack collects sticks wherever we go which is quite handy for this project! I tied the hearts on and then found some stronger cord for the top. And ta da! I’m really pleased with our little hanging and think it is pretty enough to stay up all year.

And as for the paper that was instead of newspaper… I think it’s a piece of art in its own right! I love these paintings because they have Jack’s hand prints in and just show him being free. The Okonorm paints dry such lovely soft colours. Usually children’s paints are such poor quality and the end result can be disappointing. I will buy two frames for these and put them up on the wall to cherish.