Making Valentines

The cold and snowy weather has forced us to find fun things to do inside.  Last week we had two days off due to the weather.  On Monday, I decided to do some crafts with Vera to spend some quality time together. 

I did a little searching on Pinterest and decided to make some Valentines with paint and painter's tape.  Vera simply couldn't wait to get the paints out.  I don't attempt painting projects inside the house with her very often, so I certainly could wait for the painting fiasco to commence! 

A paint shirt was the first priority.  This freebie from the fire department made a perfect paint shirt.  After all, it'll be at least 2nd grade until this shirt actually fits Vera. 

Secondly, Vera watched as I made creations for her to paint using the painter's tape.  When I showed her the hearts that I made, she jumped up and down and said, "Love!" and quickly ran to put them on the table.  She was very outspoken in choosing the colors of paper we'd use, and she also didn't fail in asking a zillion times when we were going to get the paints out. 

This one was my favorite.  Vera wasn't too thrilled about painting her hands.  I did the painting, and then she smeared them onto the paper.  She was too preoccupied with painting by herself to really care about the hand prints.

She did a good job painting, though I had to constantly keep her on task.  She was worried about getting paint on her fingers and the table.  I had to keep reminding her to paint close to the blue tape. 

When we were finished painting, we had to lay down and take a nap so the paint could dry.  Here's the projects waiting to dry. 

For whatever reason, I can't get this picture to rotate.  But you get the idea, right?

Vera was not at all happy about taking a nap and so I promised her we'd make more Valentines later.  We used markers and glue to make some more paper valentines when she woke up.  I was surprised to find some Valentine stickers in my stash to help decorate them.

Vera still hadn't had her fill of Valentines, so we made a few heart mosaics with tissue paper. 

I cut up all the little squares and explained to her what we were going to do.  Shortly after we took this picture, she gave a big sigh.  Pink and red squares went floating everywhere.

After we picked up all the squares and I covered the heart in glue, Vera quickly caught on to the decorating process.

And she did a great job!

We had an excess of tissue squares, so Vera insisted that we make more.

Now we have to work on distributing these to Vera's many Valentines this year!