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In case you’re behind on the handmade Valentines, here are some quick printables:
Heart Crayon Cards from The Long Thread.
Lovebirds Card from The Long Thread.
Valentine Card Envelope from Natalie Jost.
Color Your Own Valentines from Up up.
Candy Matchboxes with downloadable paper from Brooke Reynolds, featured on Brides.com.
Vintage Valentines from Vintage Holiday Crafts.
Dog Valentines from Hotcakes.
Sweetheart Cards from Bunny Cakes.
Cute Printable Cards from Oliebollen.
Zebra Cards from Bunny Cakes.
Kiss Cards and Wooden Valentines from Mmmcrafts.
Vintage-style Printables from Ruffled.
Goodie Bags and Brownie Bags from Twig & Thistle.
Bird Valentines from Ollieblog.
Owl Cards from Living Locurto.
Animals from Secret Agent Josephine.
Snail Lollipop Cards from Zakka Life.
Je t’aime Cards from inside a black apple.
Love & Rockets and Giddyup from Cottage Industrialist.
Pretty Love Card from Little Miso.
Ladybug Valentine and Butterfly Lollipop Cards from Skip to My Lou.
Vintage Valentine Sheet from Altered Stuff.
Printable Cards from Maquette.
Valentine Maker at Invys.
Do you love me? Card from Indie Fixx.
Cute Kids’ Valentines from Style Crush.
Sweet Sweet Cherries Japanese Fabric, $3.50 for a fat quarter from Stefanie Style.
Matchbox Necklace from Yellowgoat, $185.
I Love You Archival Print from Lisa Congdon, $25.
Vintage Footed Bowl, $30 from Brandeye.
Plate Set, $145 from Ninainvorm.
Antique Wood Block, $18.50 from ta ta.
Porcelain Earrings, $27.50 from Suus Keramiek.
Pudgy Hippo from ViolaStudio, $45.
Porcelain Hearts, $24 from Art Mind.
Have trouble finding projects for little boys? No doubt they get left out on my blog frequently since I have girls. So, look! It’s Celebrate the Boy month over at Made by Rae and Made. Rae and Dana are bringing you tutorials and giveaways from more than 20 guest bloggers all month long. So go check it out here.
Here’s another craft standard that we’re using for Valentine’s Day. After seeing these polymer clay hearts that I linked to yesterday, I found this project. So we decided to make these little salt dough hearts for my five-year-old’s class.
Though I think it would have been adorable to make them shaped like candies and it would have made a useful gift to add a magnet, I questioned the wisdom of giving small children something shaped like candy, particularly with a magnet attached. Then my husband proved how delicious these hearts look when he actually attempted to eat one, thinking they were cookies. (Take note, April Fool’s Day pranksters). See, don’t they look delicious?
We used a small heart-shaped cookie cutter and this standard salt dough recipe: 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup warm water, 1 cup flour. My five-year-old enjoyed rolling out the dough and cutting the hearts. Then we poked large holes for the string, baked them at 250 for around two hours (until hard all the way through), painted with acrylic paints and dusted them with glitter while the paint was still wet. Easy!
Chocolate Cups from Sprinkle Bakes.
Rose Barrettes from The Purl Bee.
Valentine’s Day Sachet from CraftyPod.
Felt Bowl from The Crafts Dept. at Martha Stewart.
Recycled Heart Garland from Oh So Crafty.
Fortune Cookies for Valentine’s Day & Chinese New Year from Cindy Hopper for Alpha Mom.
Folded Paper Hearts at Wild Olive.
Polymer Clay Hearts from ArtMind for Poppytalk.
Sometimes having children is about revisiting the past. Do you have any of your childhood toys left? Lucky for me, my mother is a bit of a packrat and kept many of our things. Now we regularly drink from Smurf and Muppet glasses, my children play with my old doll house and use my handmade wooden doll beds. It’s nice to see things come full circle.
But these Ant and Bee books were a different story. I had them squirreled away on a shelf, intending never to share them with my children as they are too precious. The books were originally printed in the UK in the ’70s with a re-print in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but are now out of print. They are selling for rather outlandish prices, as you can see here. But mine aren’t in very good condition and what’s the point in having something that you can’t share? So I pulled them down from the shelf and had a flood of memories as my daughter read them aloud. So sweet — and really great books. As my seven-year-old was reading Ant and Bee and the Rainbow, my five-year-old followed along reading the names of the colors. Angela Banner’s words and illustrations are still relevant today. They should print these again.
Then my friend Laura brought the girls a super awesome gift – her Barbie townhouse that she had as a girl, still in its original box and in perfect condition. My husband said this was the Death Star of Barbie toys. I took one look at that elevator and remembered that I also had this as a kid. Somewhere down the line it didn’t make it back to me, but it’s so nice to complete the circle. My younger daughter especially loves Barbie, though I have rather mixed emotions. But then I do that “Well, I played with them as a kid” thing that we as parents often do. You know, since we turned out so well. And this Barbie house has a working elevator. Now that’s just cool.
We’re planning ahead for Valentine’s Day. Since it was a gloomy weekend, the kids and I made some melted heart crayons for my first-grader’s Valentine’s Day cards. If you haven’t ever tried this project, it’s simple with great results and is a nice way to recycle broken crayons. We followed the directions from Marie at Make and Takes. The only advice I have is that the brighter colors look much better, so hide the browns, blacks and dark blues from your kids. I also used a knife on one batch to cut the crayons into even smaller bits, which I think worked well.
I made two versions of this card. One can be used without the crayon in the center, and the other has an open middle to attach the crayon. We used foam adhesive tape to attach the hearts to the cards. Simply click on an image below to download the .pdf file, print it out on card stock and cut. We also used a corner punch to create rounded corners.
 
My daughter is going to send the crayons with her own drawing below, which we scanned in and will print out. That way she can decorate them as much as she likes, but if she gets tired of it, they are still done. I’ve got another idea for my five-year-old’s valentines because she really requires that everything be covered in glitter. The teachers will love that.
Poppytalk is holding a virtual awards event, and I’ve been nominated in the Handmade Artist’s Blog category. (Thanks to Grace for nominating me).
I am not a very competitive person, and I have to admit, the term “artist” makes me feel uneasy as I don’t consider myself an artist. Am I a crafter, a maker, a blogger? I don’t know. When asked my occupation on a school form the other day, I wrote “Sewing Pattern Designer.” Since I’ve started working on this book I’ve put my Etsy shop on hold. So now I can say that I’m writing a sewing book, but I’m certainly not ready to call myself a writer. So anyway, if you enjoy reading my blog and you feel inclined to vote for me in the Poppytalk awards, that would be really sweet. There are some incredibly talented artists nominated in this category. I do appreciate all of you out there who read this blog and give me positive feedback. Thank you!
Love Alphabet Blocks Printable PDF from A Little Hut, $5.
Cupcake Stand from Whitney Smith, $38.
Hedgehog Card Organizer from Sea Breeze Studio, $14.
Baker’s Twine, $15 from Whisker Graphics.
Little Piggy with Heart Necklace, Owl & Ellie, $17.
Linen/Cotton RickRack Print, half yard for $19 from Flower Press.
Vintage Tablecloth, $16 from El Ritmo Retro.
Embroidered Alphabet Letters, $45 from Play to Learn.
Marjorie Bag in Dark Chocolate, $50 from Tiny Hearts Designs.
Looking for ideas for handmade Valentine’s Day cards? Making cards with the kids seems like such a chore when we have to mass produce them for every kid in the class. Check out my post over at Alpha Mom for seven easy heart-themed craft ideas.
I’ve been meaning to post about this for a couple of days, but in the meantime, the Etsy shop of Craft Hope for Haiti has had 740 (and counting) sales. So if you haven’t visited their shop, check it out. Handmade goods from all types of people, all proceeds benefit Doctors Without Borders. This shop was created by Craft Hope, a faith-based organization that has been donating handmade goods to those in need for about a year now. You can buy stuff like this kitty from Minori Design.
It’s interesting to see how technology, crafting and fundraising have all converged here. I think this is the first major disaster in which technology has played such a large role in the aftermath. From victims sending text messages from under the rubble, online and text financial contributions, blogs connecting loved ones, and information being spread quickly through social networking sites like Twitter. I’ll admit that technology can complicate our lives, but I’m still thankful for it. We seem to be only limited by physical obstacles in this situation. And I don’t think it’s possible to have too much information (as long as you can sift through it and discern the truth). So we still need brains after all.
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