paint cut paste

now that the birthday cards have been cleared from our mantel, we gave our hearth a fresh (and heartful) face for valentine’s day!

just a simple one, really. i created these LOVE letters like some i saw on this super-awesome crafty malaysian blog i found (via pinterest) called bloesem kids. it’s so easy… just twist together pipe cleaners and bend them into cursive letters in a word of your choice.

they looked pretty cute even like this, yet kinda crude where the pipe cleaners twist together. i’m not a huge fan of the cadmium red color of the pipe cleaners, so…

the next step is to yarn bomb them! i wrapped them with a lovely nubby alizarin crimson red yarn i’ve had for ages. (seriously, i knit my first scarf ever with the rest of this yarn in autumn 2002.)

then i strung the LOVE sign up on my trusty salvage yard window pane using white thread.

just adding a touch of red glass votive candles and some red berries from the tree outside gave it all the valentiney punch it needed.

i was tempted to bring in the paint chip heart garland and these candy jars…

but less is more, and 2012 is all about simplicity for me.

N is making “mini-mantels” in her bedroom for each season or holiday, as well. here’s her valentine one so far…

for more valentine mantel inspiration, check out my friend, beth’s, awesome valentine linky round-up on her blog. do you and your kids create a valentine mantel? if so, i’d love to hear about it!

we’ve yet to really begin valentine creation over here. generally, we wait for N’s birthday party to be over before we go on to prepare for valentine’s day. but there is one little heart craft i’ve indulged in, because, as my pinboard says, i’m a sucker for garland. and paint chips. and hearts. and easy things to sew.

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

oh my, this was a risky gift for me to create in my attempt to go handmade for the holidays. i am a verrry beginning seamstress, as you know, but i must say that i’m trusting that my friends are kind and forgiving, or at the very least – polite. i sewed up these cute little heart-shaped handwarmers to warm their hearts (and hands) for the holidays.

such a simple idea – saw it on pinterest, of course. all you need is:

• flannel (or another soft, natural fiber. synthetics can burn when microwaved!)
• thread
• rice
• a funnel would make life easier
• gift tag & ribbon

first, fold your fabric in half, and then in half again. cut some heart shapes on the edge — two at a time (so you have a pair that is the same size.)

match them up, and sew them together. (um, it is not that easy to sew curves, if you’re green like me, but i am patting myself on the back for giving it a go.) i left about a 1/4″ edge around them, and left a tiny pocket open so i could fill them.

i used a little funnel (that came with my spice rack) to pour white rice inside. then i sewed that little part up with the machine.

voila – super cute! (and visibly handmade… hey, it adds charm, right?)

then just find a pretty ribbon to attach a note with instructions that say to microwave them for 2 minutes (or under, if tiny) and put one in each pocket. i gifted these to some of my girlfriends who live in pretty cold climates.

also a fun gift for your sweetie or friends on valentine’s day!

this is a crazy-simple post. we love our watercolors around here like nothing else, and we may rival hallmark in the quantity of cards that are created under this roof. so here’s sweet little idea for some greeting cards for any occasion.

before N set out to create her abstract watercolor painting, we placed heart stickers on watercolor paper. (you can use any shape of sticker, of course.) then she enjoyed some time watching the colors ooze and blend together on the page. so relaxing.

we let the page dry completely.

after that, i tore the large sheet of watercolor paper into smaller sections against a metal edged ruler. i prefer this to cutting watercolor paper because it makes beautiful naturally rustic edges.

we peeled away the heart stickers (which came off easily) to reveal a white heart in the midst of rainbowy paint.

N chose colorful blank cards to glue the paintings to (i buy packs of them at michael’s when they offer discounts,) and she sent them out for father’s day and the end of the school year teacher cards in june.

easy and heARTful

about 11 years ago, for a few years, i was the proprietor of my own small business (on the side of my “real job”) making and selling natural bath products. once graduate school got underway, i had less time for the business aspect of it, so i dissolved my LLC. i’ve always retained the love of making my own natural products. it’s so fun now to pass this on to N! recently we created lipbalm – just in time for all of the puckering up people do on valentine’s day!

if we could have made it cake flavored, N probably would have been psyched, but we went with one of N’s second most favorite flavors for the lipbalm – peppermint. here’s my old recipe that we used.

ingredients:

• 1 tbsp beeswax (i like the small pearls – easier to measure)
• 5 tbsp sweet almond oil (due to nut allergies and because of its healing potential, i used coconut oil instead)
• 1 tbsp grapeseed or jojoba oil
• 20 drops of essential oil of choice (we used peppermint on this day, but other favorites of mine are cinnamon, lemon, lime, vanilla, ginger, tangerine… i like to mix them in fun ways. ginger-lime was the most popular lipbalm flavor i used to sell.)
• 1 tsp honey

instructions:

• melt together oil and beeswax in double boiler just until melted. remove from heat. add honey and essential oil. stir to blend. pour into lipbalm pots and let it stand to solidify.

although we LOVED making crayon hearts for her class last year, we decided that these would make awesome valentines for N’s preschool class this year. same group of kids = different gift. N picked out some heart stickers she wanted to put on the pots.

i added the following label to the back of her homemade valentine cards so that the parents would know the ingredients in the lipbalm incase of allergies or concerns.

we packaged the lipbalm and the valentine up in cute little bags we found at michael’s (intended for lollipops.)

happy valentine’s day! MWAH!

love is in the air! and at our house, hearts are EVERYWHERE! so we wanted to share… N has been having fun cutting her own hearts out of all sorts of paper.

the other day she decorated several of them using creamy crayons, glitter glue, and markers.

they’re on the fridge now, along with a cute one she cut out and glued to another piece of paper to make it into a “heart-person holding heart balloons.”

on one of our all-time favorite blogs, the artful parent, we saw the idea of cutting and watercoloring hearts out of coffee filters. just like we made coffee filter snowflakes earlier this winter, we did the same with hearts. coffee filters are awesome – not only are they easy for kids to cut, but watercolors bleed across them and blend beautifully when painted.

N spent an entire afternoon making TONS of watercolored hearts.

we hung some up on our backdoor so that the light could filter through the colors.

we mod podged some of these hearts to blank cards to make valentines for our family members.

some of our favorite heART activities from years past are:

• cutting paper hearts (age 3)
• watercolor doily hearts (age 3)
• crayon hearts (age 3)
• clay heart garland (age 3)
• stamping with heart cookie cutters (age 3)
• painting valentines for mom to cut (age 2)

happy upcoming heart day!  what are your favorite heART projects?

just a quick little entry to show one easy idea for homemade valentines…

all you need is a stamp pad, paper, a pen, and your own finger or thumb (well, your kid’s digits to be precise.) we saw this idea for fingerprint valentines on babble.com, and decided to try it. they used thumbs. N chose her pointer finger.

i wrote “happy valentine’s day” on each one, and N signed them all herself.

stay tuned to see the refreshing valentine treat N will be gifting with these cards…

have a sweet one!