Valentines Day Stuff

Our local natural families group had a valentines party last week.  I have been in a crafty mood for the last few months so of course I was wanting to do some cool crafts with the kids.  I really like the Family Fun website because they have cool recipes and crafts for each season and holiday.  It is a great place to get ideas and that is where I got all of these.  I also get the family fun magazine (it was a super cheap subscription deal) and that helps to spark my creativity too  . . . and believe me, I need it as I feel my brain doesn't function well most days!!

So we decided to make some valentines, some boxes to hold them and then some treats.  We don't eat a ton of junk or additives and food colorings etc. but on holidays and special occasions we go all out and I try not to feel too bad about all the crap we are eating (note, I said TRY, I always feel guilty as I would love to be sugar free . . . I just like it too durn much).

I got some sucker sticks and we made chocolate suckers.  I used milk chocolate and white chocolate chips.  I died like 1/2 of the white chips with (that icky) red food coloring to make pink.  All I did was take chocolate chips, melt them, put them in a sandwich bag, snip off the end and make heart shapes on top of the sticks.  OK it seems easy but try making free form heart shapes out of melted chocolate in a sandwich bag with a wiggly baby on your back and you can imagine that my hearts looked more like blobs, LOL!!  Doesn't' matter though, they all taste the same!

 

Ever in the picture at top, and Piper and Ever here decorating the suckers.

I did pop them in the fridge to harden, but after that they held up really well at room temp.  I did not add anything to them, just used the regular melted chips.

  

We then made some valentine boxes to hold the kids valentines they would get at the party.  We used tissue boxes.  The kids painted them first, then I sprayed them with a clear coat of poly (water based).  I was concerrned about the paint rubbing off since the cardboard of the boxes was kind of shiny.  Then they decorated them with stickers and stuff.  We used felt for the teeth and googly eyes.  I used a glue gun to glue on the teeth and pipe cleaners. 

  

Xian made his box all himself (left).  He made that plant thing from the Super Mario Brothers Nintendo games . . . shoot I forget what they are called.  He covered it with construction paper.  The only thing I did was the teeth. 

Ever's is in the middle.  It is a monster.  He did all the painting and decorating himself, I only did the eyes and teeth.  I thought it was great considering he just turned 3!  But he loves to paint.

  

Of course Pipers is the cat (she loves cats).  I had to help more with this, cutting out the ears/tail and teeth.  But she painted the whole box orange (had to do like 4 coates) and even gave him stripes.  She modeled him after Starlight, our orange kitty who disappeared a few months ago :0(  

And then Arah's monster on the right below.  Again, he did it all himself except the antenna and teeth.  

They were all very particular about how they wanted them to look. 

  

They worked perfectly for holding their valentines!!

For our valentines to give away I cut out several dozen hearts in a few different colors (red, pink, and purple).  I gave each kid like a dozen hearts and crayons and let them color/decorate them, then I threaded them over a lollipop stick to make flowers.

You can see them in the kids hands below.