Easy Valentine’s Day Crafts for Toddlers

With this easy Valentine's Day craft, your toddler can transform plain tissue paper into a work of art! Set out cups of paint and sheets of tissue paper in a solid color, and have your child work his magic (you can even encourage him to decorate with two thumbprints joined together to form a heart). Once the tissue dries, carefully wrap your presents with it.

This Valentine's Day bag craft makes the perfect vessel for candy. Parents will help assemble the bags, then toddlers can let their art skills shine. 

What You'll Need:

3/4" round paper punch, cardstock, markers, double-stick tape, Hershey's Kisses, small cellophane bags, scissors

Make It:

1. Parents can punch several small circles from cardstock with round paper punch.

2. Let your toddler draw on the circles with markers. Attach the circles to the Kisses with double-stick tape.

3. Place 6 to 8 Kisses in a cellophane bag, fold the top of the bag over, and secure with tape.

4. Cut a rectangle from cardstock that is the width of the bag by 2 1/2" tall. Fold it in half, and again let your toddler decorate with markers. Attach tag to the top of bag with double-stick tape.

Give this card a hand: it says "I love you" in sign language. Trace your toddler's hand on card stock. Cut it out, then fold over the two middle fingers and secure them with tacky glue. Write "I love you" on the hand and glue it a blank card. Your toddler can decorate the inside with paint, markers, stickers, and more!

Colorful M&M's serve as a sweet stand-in for X's and O's in this packaged card-and-game combo. Mom or dad can trim card stock into a 4- by 6-inch rectangle. Then help your toddler use a marker to draw a tic-tac-toe board in the center and add a message/drawing at the top. She'll have lots of fun playing tic-tac-toe with the card's recipient!

Originally published in the February 2014 issue of FamilyFunmagazine.

Pam Cox Jutte from Charleston, SC, recommends this clever Valentine's Day paper craft. For the stamp, she cut an apple in half and trimmed the edges so that it looked like a heart. Her daughter stamped the cards with red paint, then added seeds and a stem.

Personalize jumbo candy bars with festive wrappers, and attach tags of your choice. Then have your little one decorate with markers, stickers, and her own little fingerprints!