Lucky for me, today’s theme for Works-For-Me Wednesday is all about Valentine’s Day ideas. I happened to have posted a whole article of budget-friendly ideas for the holiday last week, so please stop over to the article to get tons of ideas that won’t break the bank!
On a related note, I attempted to do Valentine’s this year with my son. Now being the frugal self that I am, I realize that the store-bought cards are really not expensive at all. You can get a ton of them for a couple of dollars that have dogs on them and say, “You’re Top Dog!” and such…They are very nice and we have done that in year’s past.
This year I decided I wanted to make the holiday a little more meaningful and with only eleven kids in my son’s class, we could definitely swing actually making the cards this year. I was proud that we did it because it required more effort than the store-bought hearts and it was a creative way for the two of us to pass another snow day at home.
Since the weather was bad, all I did was pull all of the red & pink construction paper from his craft bin. I would have loved to incorporate doilies, but after seeing them going for $4.99 last week, I decided that we could do without these. The idea was to save some money, not spend four times as much!
I did have some of those cool jagged scissors that the scrapbookers use and by cutting all my hearts out with those, it gave a pretty lacy effect on the hearts and also on the edges of the cards.
I sat everything out for my son to put his cards together including a big box of buttons and a glue stick to incorporate different dimensions into his work. He came downstairs with a piece of paper (not provided for this mission) and covered it with buttons saying he would rather make lots of planets instead of doing the task at hand.
I then came upstairs to redirect his attention to all of the paper I had cut out for him and all of the pretty hearts and what happened next was exactly what I had expected…I sat and made Valentine’s for an entire hour while he made planets on other sheets of paper.
Me: “Do you want to even sign your name on these?”
Son: “Nah!”
So much for being a fun & creative mom! Maybe there are more creative ideas on Rocks in My Dryer as mine was not inspiring enough even for my own kid!
I had the brilliant idea of having my 2 year old “make” Valentines for Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts and Uncles. I got stickers and construction paper, thought I would do something easy like have him put the stickers on the paper, then color a little picture. Apparently this “forced” creativity was stifling because he has boycotted the Valentines and refuses to finish the last two!
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But it was fun right? I end up doing that with my daughter, too. But, I enjoy doing those crafty things!!! Thanks for sharing. Have a great day!!!
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One year, when my daughter was younger (ya know, those scribbling days), I just sat her down with crayons and several pieces of paper. She had a blast. I then cut out the scribble paper (I mean artwork) into heart shapes. Those were her Valentine’s for that year.
It’s special times like those that you really enjoy!
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This sounds like something my children would enjoy as well. I love the comments too about sending them to relatives or having them scribble with crayons and then cutting out heart shapes.
And what a great site you have!
Thanks,
Nikki ALL OUT Valentine’s Day
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This cracks me up. I often think I get way more excited for our craft projects then my boys do. I often end up doing them by myself as well!
Ashli
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Oh he’s quite the budding romantic.
I can see why astronomy might hold his interest though, that is pretty cool.
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Can I just ask where you live that you have 11 in a class!
I could only dream of this!
(Public School teacher)
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Oh, my son is still in a very small preschool. We haven’t had to deal with the public schooling system just yet! I am sure he will have a lot more than eleven when you venture into that world!!
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Why not give planet valentines? Boys aren’t into hearts anyway right? We tried to do a puppet project with the 2 year old the other day. She was more interested in playing with the crayons than actually using them. Oh well! Good memories at least, right?
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Boys!
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