Okay, I have to admit, I am not really a big fan of Valentine's Day. I kind of find all the pink and cupids and gushy hearts a bit sickening. What I really hate, though, is the highly commercialized "Hallmark" aspect to it, which is really pretty easy to avoid contributing to. If you really love someone, you should show them by spending money on them, amiright? However, I must grudgingly fess up to the fact that when I was a kid I did, indeed, enjoy making Valentines for my friends and loved ones. And I will very, very grudgingly fess up to the fact that making cheesy doily Valentines with Kaia was pretty fun.
It started when she dropped a big bottle of red glitter glue on the floor and the thing absolutely shattered. I transferred what I could into a jar, but when it came to the giant, shining splat across the floor, I thought of the approaching (or shall I say, "encroaching"?) holiday, which embraces mass amounts of red glitter. So, rather than try to save it, I instead got out a large piece of paper and paintbrush and handed them over. I added a glob of red paint to the paper and Kaia happily scooped glitter off the floor and smeared it onto the sheet. When it dried I cut it into a disgusting amount of assorted sizes of hearts.
I dug in our craft bins and laid out on the table all of the distressingly coloured and heart-shaped materials I could find. Kaia has been wanting to make some butterflies, so she decided to make Valentine butterflies. She did her best to use at least some of every item available.
Kaia coloured some popsicle sticks red for their bodies. I think she ended up with more marker on her hands than on the sticks, but she got the job done. :) Then we started putting hearts and doilies together. I helped her glue the big ones in place where she wanted them and then I just put glue on the backs of hearts and handed them over to her to place.
She stuck glittery little hearts all over. (And yes, those are dinosaur tattoos on her arms. They're still on from her dinosaur Birthday party, which I'll get to next.)
I cut and hot glued pipe cleaners to the backs of the sticks for antennas and Kaia slid little beads on the ends. It was a rather tricky task for her, the holes were small and the wires barely fit, but she's persistent. She used a Sharpie (one of her favourite and oh-so-often totally unfairly withheld art supplies, note the blue Sharpie on her arm in a couple of the shots,) to put faces on some more little heart cut-outs and we glued those on for their faces.
We wrote appropriately sickly notes on the backs and Kaia signed her name. I think they came out totally cute for such abominable little critters!
On Valentine's Day Kaia coloured and played with a heart puzzle.
We played a variety of games with felt beanbag conversation hearts, starting with finding the hearts hidden around the living room. We played beanbag toss into a bucket, catch, and, Kaia's favourite, playing music and trying to dance while balancing them on our heads. We suffered one bitter disappointment when I checked the ingredients of the heart candies given to her by a friend that she'd been waiting forever (3 days!) to open and they were not at all vegan. I felt terrible for not checking in the first place, but luckily I had a sucker on hand left over from her Birthday party. While the heart candies were not forgotten, they were at least excused. Next year we will have to see if we can't make some.
I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's Day. <3
