Valentine doily print cards

I've been dying to make these Valentine's doily t-shirts ever since I saw them on The Artful Parent. But since I only had a few t-shirt blanks (one each for Starboy, Mary Jane and Leah,* I thought it would be a good idea to run some tests before trying the shirts.

So, this year it was a doily heart printing Valentine year.

We placed the doily on a card, then rolled tempera paint over it with a foam roller. Then, we moved the painted doily to a second card to make a print.

A third card was placed on top of the painted doily, and Starboy ran the brayer across it to make the print on the second card.

This way, we ended up with three cards for every process, which meant that by the time Starboy was tired of making them, we had enough to send to everyone! You can see in the image here the variety of prints we came up with.

I wonder how much paint Jean and her kids used to make their prints—she seemed to have far better results than we experienced. I was really glad to do the tests, so we'd have good luck on the shirts. Fingers crossed!

By the way, I really can't recommend the tempera paint I found at Micheals. I thought I'd save myself some shipping by buying locally rather than ordering from Discount School Supply. The Michaels tempera filled the house with a sickening chemical smell, and all of the red paint dried as pink. I returned all five bottles that I had bought. This wasn't a problem I had with DSS tempera.

*Nearly everyone gets a code name, to help with privacy.

Valentine artwork

While we were making Valentines yesterday, Starboy couldn't resist the red tempera paint and insisted on painting his hands with the brush. So we experimented with some classic heart hand prints.

We have these great frames in our den that allow you to change artwork whenever you want. The whole front of the frame opens, and you can store up to 50 prints inside.

It's a great way to change the seasonal look of your home while keeping it simple.

Styrofoam print-making

I've been dying to try styrofoam printing with Starboy for ages.  I got the idea from The Artful Parent. The results are fantastic!

To hasten the process, I drew some shapes on the styrofoam in advance. This cut down on the number of steps to the process. I used washed take-out containers and styrofoam plates. This is the killer of the project, knowing you're using foam you are just going to throw out. If this concerns you, try to recycle some that will be tossed out anyway.

Starboy rolled the brayer through a glop of tempera paint. The paint is in a small, flat tray (recycled heat-and-serve mac & cheese container.)(Don't judge. You know it's delicious.)

He laid a piece of paper on top of the wet positive, then rolled the back of the paper with a second, clean brayer.

Carefully peeling away the paper revealed a beautiful positive image! (Okay, the photos aren't exactly sequential, but you get the idea.) I encouraged him to keep the prints to one end of the paper, so we could turn them into note cards, but that only happened with intensive guidance.

That laundry mountain in the background? We're ignoring that. We have priorities.

I only showed him the process one time, and he was off to the races on his own.

I did make a drawing of a truck on the fly, and when he discovered that new images could be made on the fly, he started to demand more trucks, wanting to make only one print of each one. For your first attempt at this, it might be a good idea to pre-make the printing "blocks" and keep it at that, unless you have all day to spend!

This project was lots of fun, and really satisfying. I enjoyed it, too! If you have older kids, this would be a great idea for a Valentine's Card-Making after-school gathering. 

Holiday crafting — gift tags

For me, the holiday season starts on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That's when I like to get my tree up, to really enjoy the full—brief!—season. Though, I admit Thanksgiving is a bit early this year, and we probably won't do our tree for another week.

But let the crafting begin! Last year, when Starboy was 2, we really enjoyed making our own gift tags. This could be a great hostess or teacher gift as well. It kills me to spend money on something so over-priced as gift tags, especially when the ones you can make can be so simple and special, and matched to the gift.

We used a tag-shaped paper punch with a regular hole punch, and watercolor paper. The stamps are from Paper Source and Michael's craft store. Ink was limited to black or red, and silver, though if you have older kids I'm sure it would be easier to manage more colors. You even could color in the stamped images.

A fun, quick project, and an excuse to turn on a great holiday mix and warm some cider!

Homemade Valentine — paper heart garland

Last year's marker garland.

This year's painted garland. Is it a garland? Maybe it's just a decoration.

This paper garland is very easy for your one-year-old, two-year-old, or—any age, really, with your support.

First, paint some color on some nice watercolor paper and let it dry. We used liquid watercolors (watered down) and a wide brush.