be mine

So, of course, it's Valentine's Day soon, and like little school children everywhere, the kidlet must bring Valentine's cards to every single child in his classroom.  We could have gone to the store and purchased, for approximately $2.99 plus tax, a box of cute, commercialized, pre-printed and virtually ready to go Valentines, but noooooo, not us.  "Mommy," the kidlet said to me earnestly the other day, "I wanna make my Valentines."  And as that was the other day, with seemingly lots of time spread out between then and the day these treasures must be brought to school, and because of the sweet look on his face, and my own fond memories, I said, "Sure! Let's make them."

We took the bus to the drug store, and wandered the aisles up and down in search of just the right pink and red supplies, and scissors, and glue, and glitter, and no, we can't buy any candy, and you'd think they'd have some heart stickers for gosh sakes, and that will be $19.87 ma'am.  Since every available surface in our house is covered in school related paperwork already, we decided to make our creations on the floor.  The hard floor, which is very low.  The kidlet begins writing his classmates' names on white doily hearts, and I begin to glue the hearts to pink and red construction paper.  Have you ever tried to glue a doily?  It's not pretty.  We are woefully short of pink and red construction paper, so mommy has to get resourceful.  We have lots of pink tissue paper.  Ever tried to glue a doily onto tissue paper? It's impossible.  We also have lots of pink and red origami paper.  It's not big enough for the entire heart, but it's good-sized and makes a nice design if you then glue it to white paper. I proceed with the cutting and gluing, bits of moist tissue stuck in my hair, my hands covered in glitter, doily confetti scattered across the floor.  By midway through The Apprentice, the kidlet has announced that he is tired, but I force him to finish signing the doilies, way past his bedtime or no.  Long after the he went to sleep, and I was putting the finishing touches (ie gluing down stray doily edges) on them, I realized that by Monday evening, these would probably all be in recycle bins. But this morning, my friends, they are lacy, they are glittery, there are no superheroes on them; they are fabulous.

Comments

[bluepoppy]

YOU are fabulous! Way to make beeYOOtiful valentines-- the real ones!!

[Karen]

We had our Valentine session on Tuesday. Stephanie lives for this, but it was Pete's first time. He cared deeply about which kid got which color heart (red, white, or pink) and which stickers. Finally, after all the gluing was done, he said, "I didn't know art could be so much fun!" Mission accomplished.

[Kimberly]

Those are so beautiful! Kudos to you and the kidlet!

[lisa]

in the past we have made many valentines...two time saving suggestions:
1. make heart shaped stamps from sponges (use pink, red and white paint overlaid) - it is fast and fun

2. just get him to write his name on them - (instead of their names) as they run out of steam quickly

p.s. my son, now age 7, wanted simpson valentines...so we got them last weekend, got them all ready... put them into a bag... then the puppy got them, and chewed them all up... (so today we started over)

[Mikey]

I want one