Spread Lots of Love! Valentine’s Crafts

Welcome to the month of LOVE!  Occasionally, we all need a reminder to slow down and spend quality time with the ones we love.  If you are looking for some fun activities for you and the kids (especially on those seemingly unending snow days), here are some engaging crafts to get you and the kids in the lovey dovey spirit.

The Color of Love Crayons

I didn’t want to add to the onslaught of candy that my children receive on holidays so I decided to repurpose some old crayon pieces as favors for my kids’ Valentine’s for their school friends.  It was so easy!  This craft can be found at Kid Glue.

What you will need:

• Heart-shaped (or other shape) silicon baking pan
• Crayons pieces
• Scissors
• Oven
• Cookie sheet

1. Preheat your oven to 250°F.
2. Gather the kids to help you remove crayon wrappers.  I used the scissors to make a slit down the side of the wrapper and then handed them to the kids to remove the rest of the paper.
3. Break crayons into small pieces.
4. Place the shaped, silicon baking pan onto a cookie sheet to keep it stable.
5. Fill each cup with varying colors of crayons.  At my kids’ request, I grouped the pastels together for the girls and the primary and darker colors for the boys.
6. Place the cookie sheet in the oven and “bake” for 25 minutes.  Different brands of crayons take varying amounts of time to melt but I found that 25 minutes was sufficient for melting almost all of them.
7. Carefully remove the cookie sheet from the oven so as not to mix the colors.
8. Place the cookie sheet on the counter and allow the crayons to cool in the pan, undisturbed, for approximately 30 minutes (depending on the temperature in your house) before trying to remove them from the pan.
9. Once they are cool, simply pop them out of the silicone pan and let the creating begin!
   

Circle of Love Valentine’s Wreath 

These lovely wreaths are so simple and they brighten up the whole house on those gloomy winter days!  This craft was modified from a project found at All Crafts.

What you will need:

• Construction Paper (Red, White, Pink, Purple) or foam heart stickers of varying sizes (the stickers are much less high maintenance than cutting out construction paper hearts)
• Paper Plate
• Scissors 
• Glue stick (if using construction paper)
• Heart Pattern (if you will be cutting out heart shapes from construction paper)
• Hole punch
• Ribbon or Yarn for hanging 

1. Cut hearts of varying sizes from the color or colors of construction paper of your choice (skip this step if using foam stickers).
2. Cut out the middle of a paper plate, leaving the rim as a frame.
3. Glue or stick your hearts all around the paper plate to form your wreath, starting with the larger hearts on the bottom and working up to smaller hearts on top.
4. Use a hole punch to punch a hole underneath the hearts at the top of the wreath.
5. Tie a ribbon or piece of yarn through the hole and hang your Circle of Love as a decoration.