Quick and Easy Valentine's Day Crafts

As Valentine’s Day approaches, we have found some sweet and simple crafts to make for someone special in your life. They are not very hard crafts to make. You might already have many of the supplies handy at home.

First up...yarn heart. This one is super simple. Find some yarn in the colour that you want your heart to be. Next find some sturdy cardboard. I had a box that I was recycling so we cut that up. Trace whatever size heart you want to make onto the cardboard and cut it out. 

Tie the yarn around the heart to secure it and tape the end of the yarn onto the heart. Begin to wrap. Wrap in all directions and to whatever thickness you like; tie a knot at the end when you're done. 

Eventually you have something like this... You can attach something to hang it up with or you can lay it down somewhere as a decoration.

https://www.easypeasyandfun.com/yarn-wrapped-hearts-craft/

This next one is more for the kids. It super cute! We’re going to use hearts to make a Valentine bee.

You will need red or pink, black, and yellow cardstock. Cut two large hearts from each of these colours (ours are 3 ¼ inches wide and about 2 inches deep from the middle indent of the heart to the bottom point).

You will also need two red smaller hearts (we punched them with our 1 inch heart punch) and two mini hearts which we punched out as well. The mini hearts are for the “mouth” so you want them to be a bit smaller.

Use a black heart for the bottom and then layer yellow on top, then black, and then yellow again. Make sure there is an even amount of each colour showing in the layers except for the last yellow heart which you will see all of because that is the face.

Glue on the red heart wings next so that they stick out from each side.

Now for the antennas, you can use pipe cleaners if you have them or we just cut out some slightly curvy antennas out of black cardstock. Attach your medium hearts to the ends of these.

Lastly you have to complete your face. Get as fancy as you would like. You can use stickers, googly eyes, or you can draw on two little eyes like we did. We drew a little smiley face and then put those mini hearts at either ends. Cute!

https://fromabcstoacts.com/bee-mine-valentine/

If you want a no fuss super easy craft, then this one’s for you. You will need some coloured paper or patterned paper which is what we used. Cardstock is too thick for this.

Cut a large fat heart out of your paper. Ours measured 7 inches wide and 5 ¼ inches from the middle indent to the bottom point.

If you are using patterned paper, then put it pattern side down and then fold the sides towards the centre so that they overlap slightly.

Fold the top towards the middle so that it looks like an envelope.

Now fold your envelope flap down (it should be a triangle) and close it with a heart sticker. 

Before sealing it you can write a love/special message in the centre of the heart so when someone opens it up, they see your message.

https://www.marthastewart.com/269660/folding-envelope-hearts

I’ve kept the most complex out of these simple Valentine’s crafts for last.

Out of some sturdy cardstock, make a template of a 2 inch wide heart to trace along with a 3 inch one. We cut our smaller hearts out of a pattern piece of paper and another one out of our homemade pink paper. The two bigger hearts were cut out of a white cardstock that had a simple 3D line design on it.

Now glue the little heart onto the middle of the big heart.

With an exacto knife cut around the bottom half of your inside smaller heart, almost like you are tracing it with your knife. You should have a little slit to slip the pages of a book through.

https://www.marthastewart.com/273705/heart-bookmark

Here are all the finished products. Super easy to make and super cute!

Snowman Decoration

We’re taking inspiration from our “Snowmen Tobogganing” card this week and we are making a homemade snowman decoration to adorn your house this season.

You just need some basic supplies, some of which you may already have in your house and if you don’t, they can be very inexpensive to pick up. We went to the dollar store and found a few things that we needed.

You’ll need two-three Styrofoam balls (one bigger than the other if you’re using two or three different sized ones if you’re using more), white glue and something to apply it with, thick decorative ribbon for a scarf, a bread knife, assorted buttons, toothpicks, shredded snow, a glue gun, felt for a hat, and some popsicle sticks.   

Prep your work space because this could be a messy craft. We laid out some newspaper over our table and then we also got out a paper plate and placed all of our snow on that.

Our snowman is going to be a two baller so first of all, cut what’s to be the bottom of the smaller (head) ball and then the top of the (body) so that they can lay flat when connected together.

Now apply the white glue to both balls and roll in the shredded snow. Let it dry and allow the glue to harden.

Next use the glue gun to glue the top and bottom together.

Glue gun on buttons down the center and buttons for the eyes and mouth.

For the nose we have taken some orange cardstock and cut it into a triangle and glued it on.

Glue a cut in half popsicle stick on both sides as the arms.

Now it’s time for the hat. We’re using some felt pieces that we had left over from a Christmas blog craft that we have done in the past. Take a piece of felt, we chose green. Make it into a cylinder and glue the edges together; make sure it fits your snowman’s head. Gather about half of it as the top “pom” and secure it with an elastic band. Cut slits in the top half to make it look like tassels. Now cover the elastic band with string, pipe cleaner, or ribbon. Now you have a little hat. You can just rest it on top or if you'd like, put a little dab of glue on it to keep it in place.

Lastly, use a wider patterned/decorative piece of ribbon and tie/glue it around the neck of your snowman as a scarf.  

Here’s our finished snowman...

Crafty Springtime Flower

We are kicking April off with a new theme...Spring. This month we are going to do crafts and make treats all with Spring in mind.

Today we are making a really simple and cute kids flower craft. This is perfect for a Mother’s Day gift or for a decoration around the house to bring in the Spring.

You need just a few easy to find things like scissors, a green straw (we used the hard fancy kind with polka dots), glue or glue tape, a few sheets of construction paper in the colour you want your flower to be, some yellow construction paper for the centre, hot glue, and tape if you want it.

First of all cut your centre out of yellow construction paper, about a 2 inch circle or you can punch one if you have a punch that size.

Then cut your “petals.” We chose pink and we used our leftover card strips so we didn’t have to cut. Roughly make these strips 6 ¾ inches x ¾ inches. You’ll need about 16 strips per flower.

Glue the ends of the strips together, so they kinda look like teardrops.

Once the “petals” are ready, start gluing them to the back of the yellow circle like this...

Then keep gluing them at 90 degree angles, then in between each other until all of the strips are used up and your flower looks full.

Hot glue the straw to the back and if you want, you can secure it with clear tape or some fancy decorated tape.

Now you have a beautiful Spring flower that you can keep forever!

Christmas Traditions # 4 - Orange and Clove Pomander

This week we have a very fragrant blog post because we are looking the orange and clove pomander decoration. Pomanders are basically balls made of perfumes. Often they were carried around but they were also hung up as decorations. The Victorian Era is when pomander balls became most popular. They used them to mask unpleasant smells that were around by hanging them up or wearing them. Eventually they were used more as decorations that gave off pleasant scents.

Oranges and cloves were a popular combination because the smells compliment each other so well. In the past, since oranges were imported from so far away, they would often spoil and instead of wasting those oranges, they would make them into pomanders during the holiday season and they paired them with cloves for a very festive scent. 

Orange and clove pomander have continued to be quite popular. Martha Stewart even has an article about how to make them!

I tried my best to create one for you this week. There’s no real right and wrong when making these, you just have to come up with your own designs and go with it. 

You will need an orange or oranges if you are going to make more than one. You will also need a whole bunch of cloves, toothpicks, a poky vegetable peeler or a needle or skewer, a marker, and twine and ribbon if you’re going to hang them and decorate extra.

I just went for it at first and started to dig out a design with the sharp end of a vegetable peeler, but then I stopped and took a felt to trace out my design which made it so much easier. I think using something that isn’t as thick as the vegetable peeler tip would be best.

After I dug out my design I poked holes with the toothpicks and then placed the cloves in.

I’m told is smells super fragrant, I have a cold so I don’t smell anything, but it looks really cool. It’s my first go at it so next time I would spend a little more time tracing out a cooler design and digging it out with a finer tip tool so that it looks more polished. 

You can make a bunch of them and display in a nice basket, bowl, or on a platter or you can wrap ribbon around them and hang them up as decorations that way as well.