Alright today I am reviewing some ridiculously easy and beautiful ways to artfully celebrate Valentine’s Day with your littles! Why you ask? Because my social media feeds are being clogged by over-involved but pretty meaningless activities and super adorable but super expensive “love baskets.” This post is for the mom who doesn’t have time to curate any more activities or shopping lists and doesn’t want to feel guilty for not celebrating at all. Hi, that mom is me. Maybe it is you, too. If it is, read on!
Read books about love and talk about it
Okay this is the easiest thing ever. How about to celebrate, you just talk about what Valentine’s day is, what it means for people, and ask your kiddos for ideas on how they want to celebrate it? I would open this conversation up by reading a few love-themed books and then moving the conversation into how people celebrate Valentine’s day. Perhaps you might decide what love looks like in your family, what makes individual people feel loved, or how you can express your love to others.
Make valentine’s day cards for loved ones
I’m not going to say I have a favorite valentine’s day activity, but I have a favorite valentine’s day activity. Try making cards with your children. This can work with any age, and you’ll be surprised at the results! Here are three ways to approach this, organized from simplest to most complex. They all start with the same base: a card folded from some nice heavy weight paper (watercolor or mixed media paper is great, cardstock is fine. Whatever you have on hand). Start by discussing who your child might want to send a card to, and what they would say to that person when celebrating love. Maybe the things they love about them or how they love to spend time with that person, etc. (jot those down to write in the card later!) Amazon Affiliate links in these paragraphs.
- The first idea is to provide your child with red, white, and pink paint to make a card with. This can be done with tempera cakes or squeeze paint! Invite them to mix different tints and shades of pinks. Optional: include conversations about what the colors make them think of, invite them to name their different pinks. They can use a limited pink and red palette to paint their cards! We have these tempera cakes and I just popped out the red, white, and pink.
- Layer on top of the cards you already made with oil pastels, gel crayons, or paint pens! I love mayering with mixed media and this will make those cards start to come to life! You can also do the drawing before if you prefer.
- Really collage the cards! Offer smaller pieces of pink and red paper scraps or tissue paper scraps, and supervise practicing cutting with scissors. When they have a good amount of paper cuts, pull your cards back out. Offer a glue stick or glue bottle if they are practicing that skill (dots nots lots) and glue the cut scraps onto a the folded card. You can also use colored washi tape although it doesn’t always stick to painted surfaces. Then you can marvel at your layered with love masterpiece.
A note on expectations
Interrupting to say, the key to all of this is to keep the pressure low. They can sense when you get too excited, trust me. I was practically salivating when I set this up for my daughter the first time. I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat. She made three valentine’s day cards with oil crayon potato people on them and then lost interest. The second time, I played it cool and it was much more fun.
Take photos to send to loved ones digitally or in your cards
We do this often for holidays because we are a military family and our closest family is 9+ hours away (most are on the literal opposite side of the country). There are several simple ways to approach this, and I will outline them below, organized from simplest to most complex again! No judgement here in which one you choose.
- Take a quick phone snapshot the morning of, shoot out a text with a, “Happy Valentine’s day, we are thinking of you and love you!”
- Take a phone photo and print it to include in the card! I have this amazing sticker printer from Canon that we use to make our Yoto Player Card labels but it is also great for other stuff obviously! You can access photos from your phone and print them. There is even cute frames you can include built into the software. (Amazon Affiliate link)
- Use an instant camera and stick the prints in there! I have a Fujifilm instax instant film camera and it is great! Super super easy to use and the little prints are so cute! You can even sign the bottom of them if you want! (Amazon Affiliate link)
- Take photos on your phone or real camera and do a 1 hr print pickup at Walmart or Walgreens or similar.
Level-up the Valentine’s Day photos
Two ways to make those ideas above even more fun:
- Let your kids take the photos! My daughter is 3.5 and LOVES taking photos! She has her own little camera and loves using our phone cameras. She’s honestly pretty adept at it, too. She can also of course us the instant camera and make the little prints.
- Register for our DIY Portraits Workshop and take ADORABLE, professional looking photographs with your phone OR real camera! I hold your hand through what settings to use, how to set up your background, how to prompt your kids to smile, how to edit, and where to order prints and frames! It is an online, at-your-own-pace 30 minute video workshop. Registration is on sale for $25 at the time this blog post was published!
Tell me how you celebrate Valentine’s Day!
I would love to here! Comment on this post or send me an email!