Try this plantable paper project that I posted over at Alpha Mom in celebration of Earth Day. Homemade paper with embedded seeds for planting. These are just the right size to use as gift tags or add to a gardening themed Mother’s Day gift.
Scratch Foam Printing
Sorry I’ve been absent from the blog for a while. I’ve been working on the book but made some time to help my daughter’s first grade class with their auction project. The theme of the auction is based on Van Gogh’s The Starry Night painting, which I have to say didn’t excite me too much since this painting has taken on a life of its own through commercialization. Yes, I am jaded. But when thinking of it from the perspective of a seven-year-old who may not have ever seen it, it’s a pretty cool painting.
I talked to the kids about Van Gogh, totally unprepared to discuss the serious stuff. But of course a kid pipes up and says “Didn’t he cut off his ear?” So I clumsily responded by saying that he was in a fight with a friend and was so upset that he hurt himself. How do you explain that? I left out that he gave the piece of his ear to a prostitute. They were aflutter with more questions. And then, the question “How did he die?” I discuss all kinds of stuff with my own seven-year-old, but am not prepared to talk about these things with other kids, so I responded that I didn’t know. Those first-graders really made me sweat.
Anyway, so for the auction project we decided to make a night time scene of Atlanta using scratch foam printing. I got the idea from Glitter Goods, so you can read her helpful tutorial. But of course, I somehow managed to make this more complicated. Rather than having the kids make their drawings directly on the foam, I had them do preliminary sketches, then scanned these on the computer, reduced the size, taped them onto the foam and had the kids trace to make the indentations. An important thing to remember(one that I forgot), is that when you are printing, text will need to be in mirror image so that it prints the right way. I had to go back and fix those with words in them, but luckily I had scanned in the drawings so it wasn’t too difficult.
I’ll show you the finished project after the auction, but the prints above are from my daughter’s drawing of the Peachtree Plaza. She loves this building because it is a circular building with a rotating restaurant on the top floor that offers a full view of the city. It was damaged by the tornado in 2008 and they are still replacing windows, so she included some blacked out spaces. I made this series of her drawing to frame. I’m enjoying happy spring colors right now even though it’s still quite cold here.
30 Printable Valentines
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.
A Colorful Valentine’s Day Card
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.
Hearts Handmade
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.