February 13th, 2009 § 4
As much as I’m loving sharing my finds on OCP, it’s a huge timesuck…so much so that my creative time has been cut back dramatically. I think this is why I found myself letting loose with the sprinkles last night after my daughter finished decorating her cookies. I had a blast and it was just the fix I needed….Ahhh. Back to work now!
February 4th, 2009 § 4
For as long as I can remember, the only thing that was ever exciting to me about Valentine’s Day was the chocolate. Not much has changed, really, which is why you probably won’t see much more about the upcoming holiday here. But, I do have my two little ones now and I try not to let my biases get in the way of their fun…too much.
In the spirit of being festive, I figured we’d make some V-Day inspired decor…3-D hearts!
I’m posting a tutorial for this easy project, not to insult your intelligence, but because I like taking pictures and I know some people really prefer to look at images rather than read.
What you’ll need:
painted cardboard (the girls painted the backs of oatmeal boxes).
ribbon
stapler
hot glue gun
scissors
First cut out small, medium, and large hearts. I used the same template that I used for our heart scarf then eye-balled the other two hearts from there.
Fold the smaller two sizes in half and layer all of them on top of the big heart. Then staple right in the middle. I covered the staple with a little dab of paint. Use the hot glue gun to attach the ribbon…and you’re done. That’s it.
When I originally added the ribbon, I intended on using it to hang the hearts. But that’s silly. These will only be up for a few weeks and I’m not about to puncture my wall for some fleeting decor. So, I used wall putty to stick them to the wall. That being said, you can forgo the ribbon if you’d like, thus alleviating the need for a glue gun!
We also went to the library a few days ago and brought back some Valentine-y books.
One particularly worth mentioning is the one on the bottom: Secret Valentine. Just a simple story about a little girl who, with her mother, decides to skip the greeting card store and make all of her own valentines.
So sweet it just warms my heart right up.
She even makes one for her kitty.
Surely there are other decent Valentine’s books out there. Any suggestions?
February 1st, 2009 § 6
I originally saw these thumbprint hearts on bookmarks. Very cute. I decided they would be just perfect for Valentine’s Day cards from the girls to the Grandmas.
Annabelle chose the yellow cardstock and the pink and blue paint. Blue for her and pink for her little sister. It actually took us several attempts to get the thumbprints to look like hearts. I’m sure this would be much easier for those not working with a 1 and a 2 year old.
For our little ones, we found that it was more difficult to get it right when we had their fists closed, as seen below:
Once we opened their hands up and had their thumbs sticking out, it lengthened the amount of thumb space we had to work with and made the process much easier!
I left the front cover as is with just the hearts and let them each leave a "message" inside. I really wanted the cards to be as much of them and as little of me as possible. These could definitely be jazzed up a bit, but I think I really like the simplicity of just two tiny hearts.
Charlotte doodled on the left and, it’s hard to see, but Annabelle wrote A’s all over her side on the right. I’m so proud of her and her writing. I do believe a writing journal will be coming soon.
We’ve been working on some Valentine’s decor here and there, so, if it turns out the way I hope it does, I’ll be posting it in the next couple of days.
See you soon!