Valentine’s Day :: Heart Magnets

Monday, January 14th, 2013

As January progresses and our outside world becomes a icy, crystallized, study in white, I love to begin thinking about the season of bright, cheery colors.  Valentine’s Day is a month away, which means that it might be time to begin to consider how you and your children will send hearts into the world.

In honor of one of my favorite holidays, I’ll post four more Valentine’s Day projects in the coming weeks.  Be sure to stop by and check them out!

Heart Magnets

Materials

wooden circles 1″ or 1 1/2″ wide
heart stamp (carving block and carving tool if you plan to carve it yourself)
acrylic paint
magnets
hot glue gun

How To:

1. Find a nice heart stamp*.

2.Coat the heart stamp with a thin layer of acrylic paint and stamp the wooden circles.

3. Once the circles are fully dry, glue the magnets on the back with the hot glue gun.

4. Be sure to quickly wash the acrylic paint off the stamp, so it can be used again and again.

*   If you’ve never carved stamps before, and feel inspired to try, this would be a great first carving project. You’ll need a linoleum cutter and some sort of carving block material. My goodness, the heart shape is so simple and small, you could even use some sort of rubber eraser that is laying around the house. Using a pencil, ask child to draw the heart shape on a piece of paper. When she is happy with her shape, turn it face down onto the carving material and scrape/rub it with your fingernail. This will transfer the image onto the carving material. Use your linoleum cutter to carve away the negative space, and the wee heart will be complete.

Happy heart making!

xo emily

Snowy Gift Wrap

Monday, November 26th, 2012

Gather your white paint and children on a cold afternoon and make this cheery holiday gift wrap. It is a fun way to spend a few hours in the afternoon and my children always feel so proud and excited to see stacks of packages wrapped in their own artwork.

Materials: kraft paper (or brown paper bag), snowflake stamp(s), white pigment ink pad, white acrylic paint, paint brush.

Easy peasy instructions:
1. Cut paper to size
2. Draw a horizon line.
3. Use the white paint to fill in the hill under the horizon line.
4. Use the snowflake stamp and pigment ink to create falling snow
5. Let dry and then use it to wrap your gift.

If you are going to use a big sheet for a bunch of smaller gifts, you might consider painting hills all over the paper, so all of the presents will have both hills and snowflakes.

Oh,  and snow forts, snow people, and snowball piles would be great too!

xo emily