TUTORIALS

Kiss the Birdies
LOVE BIRD VALENTINES

It’s fun for kids to make their own Valentines for 

school mates and family members, 

 and it doesn’t have to be a big production, expense, effort or mess.

 Here is a very simple, cute project for your kids to make Valentines, 

quickly, inexpensively, and lovingly.

It’s so much fun to kiss the paper!

If you are doing this with a group of unrelated children, 

they should each have their own lipstick. 

Write each person’s name on a piece of masking tape, 

and tape it to their lipstick.

MATERIALS: a printer, card stock in a light color to print the birds on, ribbon, hole punch, thin markers or colored pencils, lipstick Optional: stickers, rubber stamps, glitter etc.

EASY DIRECTIONS:

 

1. Fold a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" piece in half. 

Draw a bird shape with black pen as above, on one of the halves. 

Outline the wing and print two on 8 1/2" x 11" card stock.

2. Practice kiss printing on a separate piece of paper on the table.

Lay birds on a table. Apply lipstick to lips, pucker up,

then kiss each bird inside the wing, one by one,

3. Decorate with thin markers and/or colored pencils,

adding beaks and eyes, or whatever suits you.

4. Punch a hole in the tail. Tie on some ribbon, yarn or raffia.

5. Sign the back and/or cover the back with more kisses 

and a message.

Ta Da! Sweeter than candy!

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CREATIVE WAY TO CUSTOMIZE AN ORDINARY CARD INTO AN EXTRAORDINARY CARD

 Here's how I hacked a Valentine Card for my sweetie from the Dollar Store today.

I picked this somewhat dorky one, because it had a lot of metallic highlights in it.

front of card 

inside of card

found a stash of beautiful handmade metallic paper
and a piece of white art paper.

folded white art paper into accordion, by folding it in half first,
then again and again to make accordion
measuring about 16" long by about 4" wide.

ripped the store bought card in half then cut out pieces  of it.

cut panels of handmade paper and sewed them into the "pages" of the accordion

then sewed the pictures from the insides of the dollar store card, added some birdies on each end. Birdies were made by glueing handmade paper to both sides of cardboard, to create sturdy tabs to open it out from folded position.

There was really no good spot on the front to put the recipients or givers name, so added that to the back.

back of card when opened, love the stitching all over the place!

front closed

back closed

Ta Da! quite the bang for a buck.

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Make Winter Gnome Puppets!

The above are pictures of  Winter Gnomes made full size with the template printed on a full 8" x 11" paper. If you want to make smaller gnomes, just choose the option when you print to fit two images on the page. The best paper to use is card stock. For added va va voom, glue a real pom pom on the top of the hat! Here is a template to download and print as many copies as you like, for a fun gnome making activity.

click here for a link to the template https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2jIHP9Tzm8AWl96b3FJdktLRms/edit?usp=sharing

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Make A Magic Fish

Materials Needed: Contact Paper, Jewel Toned Crayons, Watercolors, Paintbrush, Scissors, and 8 1/2" x 11" Card Stock, cut in half. I have tried this activity with watercolor paper and it does not work.

You will need a Fish Shaped Template that you make by drawing a simple fish shape onto heavy paper and cutting out. The fish should not be any bigger than 3 1/2" x 7".

Trace the fish shape onto printed side of contact paper. 

Cut the fish out along the line you traced.
If you are working with a group of children, then cut out multiple fish from the contact paper,

 by simply stacking layers and cutting through all of them, using the traced one on top. 

The paper may slide around a little bit, but that's OK.

Peel clear part off of the paper. This is most easily accomplished by starting at one of the corners on the mouth and peeling the rest away. Long fingernails come in very handy here. If you are working with children, they may need help getting it started, but once it has started, let them peel the rest off.

 Paste the peeled fish, sticky side down onto the paper. Let children paste it down themselves, it DOES NOT HAVE TO BE IN THE CENTER! Make sure all the edges are smoothed down really well.

 Get out the crayons and scribble scrabble! Be aware that you need to get the crayon up to the contact paper edges around the fish to help define it when you eventually remove the paper.

Get out the watercolors, and dip your brush into the warm contrasting colors

(reds, oranges and yellows) and paint all over the top of the picture.

Put the picture aside to dry. Time may vary depending upon the enthusiasm of the watercoloring and amount of water used. If you are outside, it will take about five minutes to dry, inside around ten.

Once the paper is dry, gently pull the contact paper off, starting with the tail end. Children may need help starting this process, but make sure they get to peel the whole thing off for the big reveal of a big white fish.

Now color in the big white fish with markers! 

Ta Da!

I am going to flip mine over and make a postcard out of this,
and mail it to somebody, not sure just yet who that will be.