With just two weeks counting down to what is considered one of the most romantic days of the year, today’s inspiration is all about Valentines. If decorating for this day is something you do, then you’ll enjoy some of these fun décor ideas with touches of hearts, love and hugs and kisses.
To create your own Valentine banner you will need:
To begin the project, cut a paper bag right above the bottom fold. Then cute along the two outside edges to give you two rectangular banner pieces. If you want, you can cut a triangle out of each of those pieces or just leave them square on the bottom. Cut as many bags as you desire for your project. If your child is old enough to handle the scissors, great but make sure an adult supervises this task (I let my three year old, cut on some scrap pieces, but he wasn’t up for the first part of this project).
Next, shape the empty toilet paper roll into a heart. I started by creasing the top inward, being carefully not to make creases in the rounded parts of the heart, and then I creased the bottom point of the heart. After you have the shape to your liking, pour some washable paint on a paper plate. Have your child grasp the TP heart roll around the middle to hold its shape, dip an end into the paint and stamp it onto each banner piece. Your child can redip as necessary.
After the paint dries, flip over each banner piece and run a bead of glue along the top of each one. My son loved doing this and it really didn’t matter that he got a little sloppy (you might want to cover your work space before this step). Meanwhile, I cut string long enough to span each banner with a small gap between and extra for tying off at the ends. After the glue was in place, I came along and pushed the string into each bead of glue. We let it dry over night and by the next day we had a truly heart-warming Valentine banner to hang about the house.
If watching your youngest glue paper bags to his fingers, the table and the cat is not your idea of a good time, you might try one of these alternative methods. 1) Punch a hole at the top of each side of your banner pieces and run the string through the holes to create your finished banner. 2) Fold the top of each banner piece over the piece of string and staple the flap in place to create your finished banner. Which ever finishing touch your choose, pick one that works best with your child’s taste and strengths (and your mama mess index).
They say you can’t go home again, but I’ve never put much merit in that old adage. After all, I go home. . . all the time. Of course, it’s not quite the same — I’m older, family members are absent and most things don’t look as they did way back when (except my bedroom, which is a completely different topic), but it’s still home and it’s a good place to be.
That being said, I gotta tell ya, I’ve been seriously missing my bloggy home at Small Talk Mama. After the complete crash last fall, throwing in the white towel and dabbling in a new blogging venture for a few months, I just kept thinking of my home [page] and have decided to return.
No, it won’t quite be the same — posts have been lost, comments obliterated, my focus has shifted a bit and I’m rebuilding from almost scratch — but with all these changes there is still enough of Small Talk Mama, with it’s bright yellow sunflower, warm orange colors and a focus on family, to keep calling it home. I’m doing a bit of spring cleaning and rearranging to the old girl but her essence is still the same, so I hope you agree that Small Talk Mama is still a good place to be.