Paper snowman

(This idea came home from school.)

Materials:

• large sheet of blue construction paper
• white paper cut into three circles (large, medium and small)
• coloured construction paper cut into the shape of mittens
• optional: black construction paper cut into the shape of a hat and two round eyes
  
• optional: orange construction paper cut into a triangle
• optional: red construction paper cut into the shape of a mouth
• glue
• white tempra paint and big round paint brush (alternately, an old bottle cork will do)
  
• optional: other colours of paint to add / decorate hat, eyes, nose, mouth etc
  

Instructions:

• have child glue the circles -- largest at the bottom of the sheet, smallest at the top
• add mittens, hat, eyes, nose and mouth
• dab paint to make snowflakes falling from the sky (the paint on this image was dabbed on with an old bottle cork)
  

Paper mosaics

Does the crafter in your house hate throwing away all the little scraps of coloured paper? Not sure what to do with it all? Just glue it all down!

Materials:

• colouring sheet (or draw something free-hand)
• glue
• lots of small pieces of paper of different colours (larger pieces for younger kids, smaller pieces for kids with more patience and hand-eye co-ordination)
  

Instructions:

• apply glue to colouring sheet
• apply scrap pieces of paper to glued area in colouring sheet
  

Close-up:

Homemade Valentine's Day cards

Quick and easy homemade Valentine's Day cards.

Materials:

• letter sized card stock or sheets of perforated "postcards"
• scissors
• optional: paper-cutter if using card stock
• red crayon, pencil crayon or marker
• red and pink construction paper cut into hearts of varying sizes
• white glue
• heart shaped stickers
• optional: stamps, markers, glitter etc for additional decorating
  

Instructions:

• optional: if you want to have identical text on each of the cards (such as "Happy Valentine's Day" or "From your friend" then you may want to run the sheets through the printer before you cut them down to size)
• cut card stock into quarters or perforate postcards
• draw a large, red, free-hand heart on each card
• have child glue construction paper hearts as desired
• let glue dry
• have child apply stickers, stamps or other decorations as desired
• voila!
  

Heart sun catcher

(This idea came home from school.)

Materials:

• white paper, letter sized (approx 22cm x 28cm or 8.5" x 11")
• waxed paper (approx 22cm x 28cm or 8.5" x 11")
• red paper (approx 22cm x 28cm or 8.5" x 11")
• red acrylic paint
  
• hole punch
• scissors
  
• white glue
• ribbon (white, pink or red)
  

Instructions:

• cut a large heart out of the red paper (leaving a red heart-shaped frame)
• splatter red acrylic paint on waxed paper (in approximate area of cut-out of red sheet)
• let red paint dry over night
• glue waxed paper on top of white sheet of paper
• glue red heart frame on top of waxed paper
• let dry
  
• punch hole in centre top of heart
• put length of ribbon through hole, tie and hang on window

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Heart necklace

(This idea came home from school.)

Materials:

• red, pink or white yarn, approximately 60 cm (2 feet) in length
• blunt tip darning needle
• cut-out hearts (size depending on age of child ... larger heart 8cm x 8cm (3"x3") for pre-schooler, smaller for grade-schooler) from different types and colour of paper
• additional items for stringing: 2-3cm (1") length of coloured drinking straws, coloured pasta, multi-coloured "O" breakfast cereal etc
• pen / marker / crayon for writing on hearts
• hole punch
  

Instructions:

• punch hole at approximately the centre of each paper heart
• have child tell you the names of people they love, write each name on a separate heart (older children can do this part on their own)
• thread yarn through darning needle
• help child pass darning needle through decorations to start and then alternating between hearts and decorations until all hearts have been strung
• finish with more decorations
  
• tie loose ends together to complete necklace

WARNING:

The finished product could be a choking hazard if child left unsupervized. Child safety is your responsibility!

Woven heart pockets

Materials:

• Pattern (download the PDF pattern*)
• use this legend to decipher the folding symbols
• coloured paper (contrasting colours)
• scissors
• paper-clips
  
• should you wish, materials for decorating your heart (eg. stickers, glitter and glue)

Instructions:

1. print out the pattern (PDF file*) and transfer the pattern to your desired material or print it out as a practice run (be sure to check the specifications of your printer before printing on unusual media -- using "out of spec" materials can cause permanent damage to your printing hardware)


2. I've chosen to use one white sheet and one red sheet. Shown is the pattern printed on the white sheet.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   


3. Fold the sheet with the pattern on it in half, length-wise. Orient the paper with the pattern facing up.
   
   
   







4. Cut along the longest vertical lines.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   


5. Should you find that the paper spreads when you cut it as described in step 4, either use the paper clips to keep the paper in place or begin cutting from the "open end" of the fold.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   


6. Trim the rounded edges of the paper. Again, if the paper doesn't stay in place, use paper clips to keep the paper steady.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   


7. Decide how many strips you want to weave. For the purposes of these instructions, we'll be making a simple two strip pocket. (Cut along the middle dotted line and ignore the first and third dotted lines.)
   
   If you're using a thick material, cut a little longer than the dotted line shown to give you room to work.
   
   To make a four strip pocket, cut along all three dotted lines.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Repeat the above steps with the a sheet of contrasting colour.
   
   
9. Orient the pieces at approximately 90 degrees, with the rounded edges pointing up and to the right respectively.
   
   


10. Take the right most strip of the red piece and push it in between the topmost strip of the white piece.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    


11. Take the bottommost white strip and insert it in between the rightmost red strip.
    
    (I'm not sure what happened with the photography here. Apologies for the glare.)
    
    
    


12. Pull the bottommost white strip all the way through.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    


13. Insert the left-most red strip through the bottommost white strip that was pulled through in the previous step.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    


14. Straighten the pieces and voila!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

Heart pockets can be used as "envelopes" when giving out Valentines cards (or candy). They can also be used as bags to hold Valentines received.

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(*) When printing out PDF documents, be sure to set "Page Scaling" to "none" (you'll want the document to print at 100%). You may need to adjust the template on your paper depending on your printer's "offset" settings.