Crafts

Heart Collage Valentines Cards

January 24, 2019 By Terri Thompson

Valentine’s Day always brings out the crafter in us.

We love to get out the red and pink paper, scissors, glue, doilies, stickers, and every odd and end imaginable.

Sometimes the result is just a lot of fun time creating.

And, sometimes the result is a pretty Valentine’s Day card we can send to family and friends like these Heart Collage Valentines.

Make beautiful Valentines cards out of textured collages with this Heart Collage Valentines craft for kids. They're so much fun to make!

For this craft, we used our scrap bits and pieces to make some amazing collages, which we then transformed into simple cards. When we got done, we had created these pretty Collage Heart Valentines.

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Supplies Needed

Collage materials (paper scraps, fabric scraps, ribbon, tape, foam pieces, felt, magazine cut-outs, etc.)
Scissors (both plain & fancy if you have them)
Paper
Glue
Cardstock

How to make a Heart Collage Valentine

Our first step was creating our heart collage.

I presented my girls with a basket that was full of collage materials, all of which were either pink or red. We had shiny fabric scraps, felt pieces, scrapbook paper, magazine cutouts, pieces of red crepe streamer, and just about anything we could find in our crafting stash.

The girls arranged and glued until they were satisfied with their Valentine collages.

While we were waiting for our collages to dry, we folded our cardstock into note cards. If you plan on mailing these cards, simply cut them to fit in whatever envelopes you happen to have at home.

Then, using some scrap cardboard, we made a heart template to use for cutting our collages. I made a heart that was big enough to fill the space on our cards because we wanted only one heart collage per card.

After our collages were dry, we traced our heart template to the back of our collages.

Note: If you trace the heart on the back, once you cut it out you won’t have any pencil lines!

Finally, we glued our hearts to the front of our note cards, added a special message, and our Heart Collage Valentine cards were ready to go!

I love how a simple collage turned these hearts into works of art! This Valentines craft was so much fun to do. It’s perfect for both a large and small group of kids.

What kinds of Valentines are you sending out this year? I bet there’s a special person who would love receiving one of these Heart Collage Valentines!

Make beautiful Valentines cards out of textured collages with this Collage Heart Valentines craft for kids. They're so much fun to make!

Our favorite Valentine craft resources

This fun Valentine’s Day craft is a fun way to use up all the odds & ends in your craft closet. But, you’ll also want a few additional supplies to make these pretty cards. Here are a few things that you’ll need:

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Cardboard Hockey Stick Craft

January 15, 2019 By Terri Thompson

It’s hockey season!

Do you have a kid that loves hockey? Here’s a great craft that they’ll love.

Make this fun Cardboard Hockey Stick to celebrate this fun sport and to make a fun decoration for any hockey fan.

Your young hockey fans will love to make this simple Cardboard Hockey Stick craft. It's fun to make and use to decorate your room.

Are you ready to make your hockey craft?

Let’s grab some supplies and get started!

Supplies Needed:

Cardboard from a shipping box
Pencil or marker
Scissors
Craft paint (in whatever color you want for your hockey stick)
Washi tape

How to make your hockey stick craft

First, you’ll want to draw a simple hockey stick shape on your cardboard.

Hint: If you’re unsure of how to get started, just Google “hockey stick” and take a look at the photos. It’s a simple shape, but make sure to use a pencil so you can erase if needed.

Once you have your hockey stick outline, cut out the shape.

If you’re working with young kids, an adult should do this step. Cardboard boxes can be hard to cut through and need sharper scissors.

And, if you want to do this craft with a group of kids, I would recommend prepping the cardboard ahead of time and then the kids can paint and decorate their hockey sticks.

Once you have your hockey stick cut out, paint the entire surface in the color of your choice.

We chose black, but you can do any color. You can even choose your favorite team’s colors!

Let your paint dry before moving on to the next step. Once it’s dry, pick out a few fun rolls of washi tape.

Use the washi tape to make stripes on your hockey stick. Put them around the bottom or the top. Or, put your stripes anywhere you’d like.

Don’t have washi tape? Use can draw designs on masking tape and use it instead. Or, you can just decorate your hockey stick craft with stickers!

And, we’re done! Wasn’t this such a fun and simple craft?

Your hockey fans will want to make a few of these. Maybe for their favorite team or perhaps one for the team they play on.

Check out my favorite craft resources.

This fun hockey stick craft only uses a few supplies. Grab some cardboard from your recycle bin to use with these supplies:

Do you want to do more activities with your kids?

Recycled Valentine Crafts for Kids

January 11, 2019 By Terri Thompson

We love to use recycled materials when we make crafts.

It just seems much less wasteful to use a few things before they get thrown out.

Here are some awesome recycled Valentine crafts that all use an item or two from the recycle bin.

Check your recycle bin for supplies to make these cute and fun Recycled Valentine crafts for kids. You'll want to make them all!

They’re all pretty and fun. You’re kids will love them!

Let’s gather some supplies and get started crafting.

Recycled Valentine crafts for kids

Save your empty cereal boxes to make one (or more) or our Silly Heart Puppets.

Before your recycle your empty cardboard tubes, use them to make our Heart-Stamped Valentine Cards.

Use up your scrap paper and fabric to make some of our pretty Collage Heart Valentines.

Or, use cardboard and other scraps to make our pretty Monochromatic Collage art project.

You can also make pretty Heart Magazine Collages like these from Arts & Crackers.

Do you have a pile of old CD’s laying around? I do. Instead of throwing them out, use them to make these fun Recycled CD Valentines from Crafts on Sea.

Save an empty tissue box so you can make a cute Valentine Box Robot like this from B-Inspired Mama.

Don’t toss that empty milk carton! Instead, rinse it out and use it to make an adorable milk-carton Valentines House from Happy Hooligans.

More awesome recycled Valentine crafts

Save your grocery bag to make a cute Brown Paper Grocery Bag Valentine Holder from Buggy & Buddy.

Use up your fabric scraps with this pretty Rag Heart Ornament craft from Happy Hooligans.

Before you recycle your newspaper, make a pretty Newspaper Heart Garland from Kitchen Counter Chronicles.

Use the bubble wrap that came in your packages to make a set of Bubble Wrap Printed Valentine Cards from Rainy Day Mum.

And, cut up the box to make these simple Yarn-Wrapped LOVE Letters from Rainy Day Mum.

Or you can use the cardboard box to make Recycled Cardboard Heart decorations from Arty Crafty Kids.

Don’t toss those empty cardboard tubes until you’ve made a couple of these Owl Valentines from Kitchen Counter Chronicles.

Which of these recycled Valentine crafts are you going to try with your kids?

My must-have Valentine crafting resources

While the recycle bin has tons of fun stuff to craft with, you’ll want to few extra things to help you create some awesome Valentine’s crafts. Here are some supplies I like to keep on hand:

Do you want to do more activities with your kids?

Arctic Fox Camouflage Craft

January 8, 2019 By Terri Thompson

We’ve been learning a lot about Arctic animals lately, and we decided to take a look at the Arctic fox. To show off what we learned, we came up with this fun Arctic Fox Camouflage craft.

Learn all about the arctic fox and camouflage with this fun Arctic Fox Camouflage craft and activity for kids. It's a fun way to learn!

It all started when my 4-year-old recently picked up a book about Arctic foxes at the library and requested we learn about them. Absolutely! (This tends to happen a lot, which is why my girls and I know many interesting tidbits about different animals.)

The Arctic fox turned out to be much more fascinating than I first thought. One thing that stood out for all of us was how different the fox looked in winter and summer.

This simple observation turned into a fun lesson in camouflage and how animals adapt to their surroundings.

We also did an easy art project based on what we learned to provide a visual reminder of how the Arctic fox uses camouflage.

Supplies Needed:

Construction paper (blue, white, brown)
Ruler
Paint (white, brown, green)
Scissors
Glue
Black marker

Create your Arctic Fox Camouflage craft

Before beginning the project, I used a ruler to draw a line down the middle of our blue paper.

One half for the summer and the other half for the winter. We used our white paint to create a snowy landscape for our winter Arctic fox.

We then used our brown and green paint to create our summer landscape

The Arctic tundra is not lush and green in the summer. Instead, you will see more dirt and rocks with low-lying plants. (This picture from National Geographic is a good example of what you would see.)

Once our painted landscapes were complete, use cut simple fox figures from our construction paper.

We made the winter fox from white paper and the summer fox from brown paper. We then used our black marker to draw the details.

My preschooler observed that the Arctic fox was both brown and black in the summer, so she added some black stripes and patches with the marker.

Once the paint was dry, we glued our foxes onto the correct landscape.

We then used our marker to label the different scenes summer and winter.

Once we were done we had a great reminder of how the Arctic foxes uses camouflage and adapts to its surroundings with this fun Arctic Fox Camouflage craft.

Note: This post was first published on January 23, 2014. Updated and republished on January 5, 2019.

Read a Great Book About Arctic Foxes

You can find out so much about arctic foxes in a good book. Here are some great choices of nonfiction arctic fox books, plus one fun fiction choice!

Arctic Fox: A Day in the Life: Polar Animals by Katie Marsico

Elementary Explorers: Arctic Foxes by Victoria Blakemore

Arctic Foxes: Animals That Live in the Tundra by Maeve T. Sisk

Nora: The Arctic Fox Fairy (Rainbow Magic Fairies) by Daisy Meadows

Are you looking for more kids activities?

Simple and Fun Shape Crafts for Toddlers

December 31, 2018 By Terri Thompson

I’ve always loved learning with arts and crafts and so have my girls. We’ve made so many fun craft projects over the years.

These fun shape crafts for toddlers are all great ways to create while you learn.

And, if you love doing crafts with your toddlers, check out all of our fun and Simple Crafts for Toddlers here.

Learn all about shapes with these fun and easy shape crafts for toddlers. Have fun creating and learning about circles, squares, and triangles.

The crafts are easy and emphasize process over product. They’re all a fun way to help your toddlers get familiar with simple shapes.

Learn about circles, squares, and triangles with these fun crafts.

Fun Shape Crafts for Toddlers

Make fun collages using shapes with our fun Shape Collage craft.

Turn a square into a fun monster with our simple Square Monster craft.

Use a fun stamping process to make this fun Circle Art from Teaching 2’s and 3’s.

Create circles of many sizes with this fun Circle Process Art activities from What Can You Do With Paper and Glue?

Learn about triangles with this fun Sponge Stamped Triangle Collage from Buggy and Buddy.

Use glue and Fruit Loops for this simple Circle Craft from Everyday Chaos and Calm.

More Shape Crafts for Toddlers

Create a fall tree out of triangles with this fun craft from Coffee Cups and Crayons.

Get creative with some big artwork with this Easy Shape Art from Meri Cherry.

Make pretty art with squares with this Square Painting project from Teaching 2’s and 3’s.

Paint shapes with this easy toddler painting idea from My Bored Toddler.

Practice sorting while you make pretty suncatchers with this Shape Sorting Suncatcher craft from Happy Tot Shelf.

Make beautiful paintings with this fun Contact Paper Resist Shape Art from Mess for Less.

Which of these fun shape crafts for toddlers are you going to try?

Do more with your toddler!

It’s so beneficial to have fun activities to do with your toddler. My friend Jamie from Hands On As We Grow has got a great free 7-Day Toddler Activity Challenge. You’ll have fun and make memories with these age-appropriate and simple activities. They’re the best! You can follow this link to sign up for the FREE 7-Day Toddler Challenge.

Crafts