i’ve seen it done with a “where met met, where we married, where we live or honeymooned” sort of theme (or some rendition of that, like this one from minimoz.) but i went with the four (so far) cities where we’ve lived together: new york city, boulder, richmond va, and the sf bay area. (in that order.)

i had an old atlas that i didn’t mind cutting up. i mean, we have google maps and GPSs for that these days, right? i cut out a folded heart on construction paper first. then i traced it over the maps where the cities where we lived were included within the heart. (that way the actual map wouldn’t have a fold, and the hearts would be identical in size and shape.)

then i used elmer’s glue dots to affix the heart maps to a piece of large card, gray cardstock from michaels.

i put it in an unused frame we’ve been storing in our garage, and presented it to my valentine along with a teeeeny giftwrapped compass from the world’s smallest postal service (have you seen this cuteness yet? check it out, if not. i met the artist, lea, at an art fair over the holidays, and she’s as lovely as her mini-art!) the note inside her prepackaged compass reads, “where would i be without you?”

cutesy, sure. but i’m finding it to be a fun walk down memory lane to look at our old roads and landmarks in this way. knowing us, this piece is likely to expand. we’ll probably need a larger frame at some point in the next few years. that is, if the past is the greatest predictor of the future. let’s hope not – i’m not a huge fan of cross country moves.

i decided to title the piece: “wait, they don’t love you like i love you.” because it’s pretty much the only lyric in the yeah yeah yeahs song that’s strangely titled maps.

i pinned this about 6 months ago, originally from ohcrafts.net. so i’ve been psyched to do it for a while, and tiz the season now. i grabbed my trusty heart hole punch and some paint chips from my stash (yes, all of us crafty mom bloggers have paint chip stashes. we’re a weird breed.)

i punched away until there were hearts of many rainbowy colors.

even just this heart confetti is splendid to look at and to play with!

the little one had fun using the punched out paint chips as stencils.

cute as they were on their own, i still took it to the sewing machine and fed each one through while keeping a fairly steady, slow pace with the needle. it was easier than i thought, and the machine was forgiving if i had a few stitches in between each heart. for me, that was an experiment, as i am still learning how to sew.

stitched together

i heart this!

then i got heart-happy and stitched a few more hearts to some colorful paper. i think i’ll add these to some valentine’s day cards soon!

this garland looks festive in our kitchen right now, but notice that hearts are top heavy… expect some twists and turns, or maybe opt for sewing them up double-sided.

this also might make a cute addition to our february mantel, which i’ll share when the time comes (after birthday season!)

strung along

one of our advent activities was “make snowflakes!” and it came along with this lovely book full of photographs of real snowflakes, for inspiration. (since we can’t observe the real thing where we live.)

the thin papers coffee filters and cupcake liners are made from are so kid-friendly to cut in thick, folded stacks. their round shape is perfect for snowflakes and makes it easy to fold them into six sections, as snowflakes are six  sided. so we put on the christmas carols, prepared some pear cider, and got to work.

i also realized that if i left pre-folded cupcake liners on N’s art desk, snowflakes would spontaneously appear – like magic!

we taped ours to a front window in our home, to be admired by passers-by. day by day, the snowfall is thickening around these parts… happy winter!

i think we’ll leave these up all winter long!

i saw this idea on pinterest (of course because i live on there! wth?!) and had to try it out! i’m always the chick who’s pocketing paint chips at the hardware store, so that part was easy. i have a large stash of buttons and ribbon, and a glue gun, so we were set to go. N was excited to cut the paint chips into triangles together, and was a huge help in doing so.

after she cut these lovely green ombre triangles, i hot glued a loop of ribbon under a button to the top of each one. N instructed me NOT to put a brown trunk on each one, so we left the trees as they were.

they turned out to be so cute! now i just need to get the actual GIFTS made!

paint chips are so naturally amazing — in what sorts of artistic ways have you used paint chips?

we had an awesome time cutting the cookies…

and decorating the cookies.

and admiring the cookies and eventually eating the cookies! (and gifting some)

the next day when N was playing alone in her room, she asked for scissors and paper. i knew she was coloring, and she was being sort of sneaky about it, but we granted her the items (regardless of my fear that she will someday soon attempt to cut her own hair.) after almost an hour of total quiet in there, she emerged with “cookies!”

she had been cutting and decorating lots of “cookies” on her own, and was quite proud of them. i just love child-originated art projects!

(angry gingerman shown for scale? or just because we were about to munch on him... which is probably why he was angry)