Crocodile (or Alligator) Valentines and Box

 My daughter loves animals, especially green ones.  This year she wanted to make an alligator Crocodile Valentine's Day mailbox, which I kept accidentally calling an alligator.  She thought it was hilarious.  Obviously this is a crocodile, not an alligator, right?

 Basically it's just a shoe box.  We cut out the mouth, eyes, and tail from another box and taped them on before spray painting the whole thing light green.  Then I gave my daughter a piece of bubble wrap and three colors of green craft paint and she stamped the scales on the alligator.  She just brushed the paint onto the bubble wrap with a foam brush and pressed it onto the box.  She added some wiggle line "spikies" with the foam brush after it was all stamped.

We forgot to put feet on before spraying it, and she didn't buy my explanation that it's because it's swimming and you can't see the feet, so she put on little green foam feet afterward.

The tongue (you can't really see it in the pics) is shaped like a heart and cut out of pink craft foam.  The teeth are also craft foam hot glued on.  She cut out her name from the same pink craft foam.

The valentine "card" she is passing out in class are these little clothespin baby alligators crocodiles.

 I gave her the same green paints and a foam brush and she painted all 20 clothespins various shades of green.  I cut out the spikes with pinking shears and craft foam.  I hotglued those and the eyes on.

 Each crocodile is biting a Smarties® candy wrapped with a piece of paper that says, 

"Have a Snappy Valentine's Day!" 

 Alternatively you could do, 

"I'd snap at the chance to be your Valentine!"

Owl Tree Valentines Box from an Oatmeal Can

Here's my daughter's Valentine's Day mailbox creation!  She used it in Kindergarten.  We had a lot of fun making it together.  I love that with an oatmeal can you can pop off the top when your child gets home so you have easy access to the cards and goodies inside.

 

To make your own Owl Tree Valentine's Box, you need:

• an empty oatmeal can
• branches (either a cardboard tube of glowsticks, or a paper towel tube or toilet paper tubes)
• brown craft paint (we used both brown and tan paint)
• craft foam sheets, or construction paper (green, red, pink, orange, black)
• hot glue

Since my daughter gave out glowstick bracelets with her valentines' cards, we already had a tube to use for the branches.  We found the bracelets in the dollar section at Target and they look like this:

If you don't have that, then use a paper towel roll or some toilet paper rolls instead.  All you have to do is cut the tube in half on a diagonal (so your branches will be angled up).  The black wrapper on the tube peels off easily.

Hot glue those onto the oatmeal can.  (Actually in hindsight I might try something stronger that hot glue, like E-6000 maybe.   One branch fell off at school).

Cut a hole in the oatmeal can.  I recommend making it big because with Pinterest you never know what kinds of big crazy valentine's creations your kid is going to get.

Then paint the whole thing brown.  I just dipped the brush in both tan and brown to give it a streaky brown wood look.

Then I had my daughter write her name and draw leaves and hearts on the foam craft sheets. I helped her cut them out.  She liked making "heart fruits" to go on the tree.  I just free-handed the owl.  Use a hole punch to make the eyes really round.

Then glue it all on.  My daughter liked finding places to stick everything.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Hair Bow

My husband and I sometimes celebrate Valentine's on the 12th because it's the day he proposed to me.  So, in honor of early Valentine's, here's a heart hair bow.

I cut out 3 hearts out of felt, the largest one with pinking shears.  Then I just stitched them together with red embroidery floss.  Between the medium and large heart I added some polyfill to make it more plush.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentines Day Wreath

I've seen a lot of baking cup or coffee filter decroations, and I thought a baking cup wreath would be perfect for Valentine's Day.

To make this wreath you will need:
-1 12-inch straw or Styrofoam wreath
-Red or pink ribbon-enough to cover the wreath
-100 cupcake papers in Valentine's colors
-Small wooden letters/shapes
-Pink acrylic craft paint
-hot glue gun
-breads, string, and a needle
-a paperclip

Wrap your ribbon around the wreath to cover all of the straw / styrofoam.  Then get out your cupcake baking cups.  Here are the cupcake baking cups I chose:  Cute huh?  I wish you could see the hearts in the wreath, but they're all covered.

Take the cups and fold them like this:

Then add a drop of hot glue on the end and start sticking them on your ribbon covered wreath.

Try to vary the direction of the cups as you go so you get nice even coverage.

Once you've covered it all, it's time for the beads and words.  I bought a variety bag of small wooden letters and shapes.  Pick out the word and hearts you want to use and paint the letters pink with your craft paint.  While they're drying, string your beads.  I used a piece of mono-filament string and sewed it onto the ribbon on the back of the wreath.  Then I strung the beads and attached the other end of the string with the needle.

 Flip your wreath over and, using hot glue, glue your word onto the beads.  I thought about using a piece of ribbon instead of a string of beads, but I like the look of beads better.  Then hot glue any wooden hearts you'd like to right onto your baking cups.

Lastly, I used a paperclip to make a loop to hang the wreath on my door.

Now hang up your pretty pretty wreath and admire it with your Valentine.

I'm linking up to Tatertots and Jello and Nesting Place.  They were my inspiration.