sweet hearts

 a few days ago the little one and i had started on her valentines for school.
we decided to do marbled shaving-cream prints ... one of our favorite ways to make colorful prints.

you just cover a tray with shaving cream, add a few drops of food coloring (as many colors as you wish) and stir it gently with a toothpick to get the marble effect.

place your paper (we used watercolor paper since it's rather strong and durable) gently on top of the shaving cream, move it a bit to the right, to the left, ...

once you have your paper covered pick it up gently, lay the paper flat (with the shaving cream covered side facing up) and now use a ruler to scrape off the shaving cream.
here you can add more movement to make the marble effect even more "swirly" .

of course, once your projects are finished, one must always use the opportunity to make a huge mess and play with the wonderful texture of the soft, squishy stuff ;)

today we cut the marbleized paper into big hearts, hole punched holes all along the edges and  ...

laced pretty pink ribbon around.
one side was fastened with a pearl to stay put and the other end of the ribbon was reinforced with a piece of pink duct tape to make it function more like a needle for the lacing.

little L added her name and stickers and i added a lollipop to the hearts ... making them sweet hearts

these valentines will keep those little pre-school fingers busy for a little while.

little L also made lovely cards for her pre-school teachers ... both teachers love to teach the kids sign language, so we thought it was fitting to create these little love-notes

i'll sew around the edges in red and we'll add a few flowers et voila ... i love you and sweet hearts to share the love on the day of love

sadly big L decided to go for store bought star wars valentines this year :(

it has been tradition to make valentines in our house since L started school.

i was trying hard to convince her we should stick to the routine but was told "that you need to be flexible and sometimes things change mama" ... there i was, hearing my own words repeated by my 7 year old .

i guess bookmarks can not compete with Darth Vador and Anakin love notes.

i hope you are having fun making your marks on valentines :)

~be well