No holiday is immune from arts and craft rendition, and Valentine’s Day is no exception, especially since the iconic Valentine’s Day card so heavily associated with February 14th is a craft in itself. Sadly, this is becoming less often the case as more and more people opt for store-bought sentiments in place of homemade ones, but the art of making Valentine’s Day crafts is not yet dead. Ironically, store businesses have begun to thrive on supplying the means to create said homemade sentiments. Well, even homemade (Valentine’s Day) cookies are made from ingredients you buy at the store.
And Valentine’s Day crafts aren’t limited to mushy notes, or else you wouldn’t be able to keep the kids interested. Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to bring out creativity in the classroom. Valentine’s Day conjures up images of hearts, cupids and flowers and there are about a billion ways to artistically interpret them, from the simple paper cutout heart and arrow to the intricate origami rose bouquet. Your kids might want to stick to the simpler Valentine’s Day crafts, but that doesn’t mean that they have to be boring (though you might underestimate how stimulating it is to try and create the perfect cutout heart).
If you want to be thrifty, you can gather materials for your Valentine’s Day crafts from easily found items around the house like paper and glue and various recycled items. For a wider, higher quality and higher price selection you can check out your local crafts store. Or you can mix and match, save a little and spend a little by doing both. It’s a good idea to use homemade items for the basic construction and store bought items for special details.
As for enhancing your Valentine’s Day craft ideas, the paper heart can easily be upgraded into the paper woven heart or the paper heart pillow. Cut slits into a large paper heart and weave different colored paper strips through it. A pillow can be made with cotton stuffing inside two paper hearts stapled together or two felt hearts sewn. Felt would probably be softer and nicer to cuddle with, since paper can be rough and the staples can get caught on your skin. Follow your heart’s desire—paper and staples is fine if it’s strictly for decorative purposes and ease of construction, but if you want something more functional or challenging then sewing fabric is the way to go.
