Valentine Activities & Crafts for Kids

Here are a few Valentine things we've done in the past.  Enjoy!

1.  Heart sun catchers to hang in the trees
2.  Kids Valentine's Party
3.  Crayon hearts {complete with my secret to easily unwrapping the Crayolas}
4.  Valentine Snowflakes
5.  Shaving cream marbled hearts
6.  Valentine count down

Let me know if you try any of them out!

My Favorite Things Giveaway {CLOSED}

I am hosting a "Favorite Things" party at my house this week.  My friends are coming over and bringing a few of their favorite things and we are all going to exchange them. 

In preparation for the party, I contacted the companies of some of my favorite things and asked if they'd sponsor the party.  And they said, "yes!"  Good news for me.  Good news for you!

I will be doing a drawing at the party and here are a few things I have to give away:

♥ This silver dandelion necklace made by Lulubug Jewelry

 

          You can find her Esty shop here.  I found her when I bought my daughter that "You Are My Sunshine" necklace pictured below.  She hand makes all of her jewelry and it is pure silver.  Her designs are beautiful and include dogs, birds, owls, other animals, cupcakes and great quotes.  She even packages it up cute for you!  Here are a few of her other pieces:

♥ These cute letter press Thank You cards from 1canoe2

          She sells letterpress prints, greeting cards, coasters, recipe cards and more via her Etsy shop here.  I love, love, love all things letterpress.  I'm a big fan of real live mail so I send out many cards.  Her illustrations are so clever, yet simply drawn.  I bought that "Stars at Night" Texas print last month from her.  I couldn't resist a Texas letterpress print with those song lyrics!

♥ Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith.  I'm giving one away at my party and one to you!

          I bought myself one of these after my niece got one for Christmas.  I found myself wanting to use hers so I had to buy my own.  It is a journal / sketch book of sorts with instructions to destroy and mark up the pages.  Keri's illustrations and instructions encourage you to do things like poke holes in the pages, glue pages together, rip the pages, draw things, drip paint on the pages, and write your inner most frustrating thoughts.   I love having a book where I can be creative and fun but don't have to keep it picture perfect.  It's a great creative outlet for me.  Keri is super creative and also has titles like Finish This Book and This Is Not A Book  as well as fun titles for kids.  You can find them from any major bookseller like Amazon or Barnes & Noble.  I'll post pictures from mine in another post sometime soon.

♥ These cute Francie Pants for girls.  I am giving away two pair of these at the party and two pair to you, my readers!

I bought my little girl a few pair of these last spring.  They are lightweight, silky, comfortable shorts (if you will) that girls can wear under dresses, skirts, for gymnastics or for cheerleading.  My daughter wore them all summer long under sun dresses and with tanks to play in.  They are perfect underneath other things because they are tight and silky so things don't bunch up.  They are short enough that they don't show until she does somersaults or crawls around.  And that's when I'm glad she has them on!  She wears them around the house all winter because they are "cozy" in her words. They come in sizes for babies up to women and they have over 20 different colors and patterns to choose from.  I can swear by these because she's been wearing them for a year and we truly love them.  Here she is wearing them last week under her tutu.  I just love her chunky two year old thighs!

Here are a few of their other styles.

♥  The Homesick Texan Cookbook by Lisa Fain

Lisa is a fellow Texan who lives in New York.  She, like many of us who have left the Great Lone Star State, misses those great Texas restaurants and food.  She has blogged about it for years and now has compiled her awesome recipes into a cookbook.  She has great recipes for brisket tacos, migas, chipotle chicken tacos,  queso flameado, Texas sheet cake,  and even kolaches!  I'm giving this book away at my party but I have a cookbook for you, my readers to have a chance to win:

Joy the Baker's Cookbook

Are you drooling yet?  The cookbook hasn't even been released yet so you are among a select few who'll have access to some of her mouth watering confections!  I'm going to make something from the book for my party.  I'm having a hard time deciding between the s'mores brownies, the lemon drenched lemon cake (I could die!), or the glazed lime cake.  I'll keep you posted!

♥ The books Snowflakes for All Seasons and Snowflakes by Cindy Higham.  I have one of each book to give away to you, my readers!

These two books are full of snowflake template ideas.  She begins with showing you how to fold the paper correctly.  I had been doing it wrong for years, who knew?  Then each page has a pattern for cutting intricate snowflakes of every shape and theme you can imagine.  The Snowflakes book has holiday themed ones as well as many more generic shapes and they are so intricate and beautiful!  I have cut several of these for holidays around here.  I even have a Snowflakes For All Seasons tab on the right side of the blog.  You can see some of the ones we've cut here.

So, that makes for several lucky readers winning some of my favs!  To recap the giveaway here are the things up for grabs:

• Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith
• Snowflakes by Cindy Higham 
• Two pair of Francie Pants
• Joy The Baker's cookbook 
• Snowflakes for All Seasons by Cindy Higham

Leave a comment below and tell me which of my favorite things you'd love to win.  If you follow me, leave an extra comment and you'll get an extra entry!  I'll pick a winner next Monday so get your comments in by Sunday night.  Be sure and have an email address attached or leave one for me to contact you!  U. S. Residents only.

Stay tuned for my update of the party and another giveaway of the Swag {Goodie} Bags!  I have gathered all sorts of fun items to give each guest at the party and I'll be giving away a bag to a reader later this week!

Valentine Snowflakes

After putting a few months on hold, we're back to making our Snowflakes for All Seasons. Here are the Valentine ones I cut for this month. I do miss my spacious kitchen window in my last house that I hung them on.

Spring Snowflakes

So sorry I skipped out on the last few months of Snowflakes for All Seasons. We were getting our house ready to list, listing it, travelling to find a new home and now we're back with nothing to do but wait for the movers (HA! I wish). So, we decided to make St. Patrick's day snowflakes and a few spring ones.

Here's a kite, rainbows and pots of gold (I colored this one) and some shamrocks.
Here's another shamrock and some butterflies and tulips.

Snowflakes for All Seasons

We skipped November and December but will cut them out and post pictures next year just for your viewing pleasure. So stay tuned!

Halloween Snowflakes

We cut out Halloween snowflakes this weekend from our Snowflakes for All Seasons book. I didn't have any black paper on hand so we cut them out of orange, green and purple and hung them in our kitchen window.

Frankenstein, spiders and pumpkins
Bats, pumpkins & cats, and a spider web

Christmas in July & a Giveaway!

I hosted a Christmas In July Handmade Gift Exchange this week and it was lots of fun. I figured people have more time on their hands to make something creative in the summer. What I didn't figure was that SO many people would be out of town. 13 of my 16 "no" rsvps were out of town. Anyhoo, we had a good time and I'll share a few pics with you.

I decorated with snowflakes and candy.
I made these chocolate lollipops out of white chocolate and snowflake molds and gave them as party favors.I cut snowflakes from patterns in my Snowflakes for All Seasons book and hung them on the front door. I also put a little trio of Christmas trees on the porch.
I thought these white chocolate melted snowmen were very appropriate for Christmas in July in Texas. I found the idea in my Family Fun magazine earlier this year.
I crocheted this scarf (to go along with a winter theme) for my handmade gift. I wasn't happy with how it turned out so I included a note that I'd make the recipient another one. I just didn't have time to start another one this week.
I also crocheted this little flower and used it instead of a gift tag.
Now for the gifts! Melanie received the scarf I made and wore it while she played the guitar and sang for us. This is one seriously multi-talented woman.
Ginger received crocheted hot pads and homemade caramel popcorn from Heather.
Heather received this really cool tin and decoupaged letters from April. The letters are magnetic and she included enough letters to spell "home," "noel," and "love." It was beautiful.
April received yummy homemade banana bread from Jeni who used her mother-in-law's famous recipe. It's the best I've tasted.
Jeni received a jar of homemade blackberry jam from Ginger from the blackberries that grow in my grandmother's backyard. Yum!
I received a recipe box and two cute little recipe booklets that were full of hand-stamped recipe cards from Melanie. She is a Stampin' Up demonstrator and everything she makes is beautiful. She posted better pictures of it here. She also included these little hand stamped tags that say, "from the kitchen of" that I can use on gifts.
Last but not least, I pulled down these Christmas glasses from the attic to use since they are festive. Do you recognize them? Do you know where they are from? You'd laugh if you did. If you know where they are from, leave me a comment and I'll mail a little Christmas treat to the first person who gets it right.

Snowflakes for All Seasons

I picked up this book a couple of years ago and forgot all about it. It's called Snowflakes for All Seasons by Cindy Higham. I think older kids would really dig this book. The list price on it is just $9.95. It has 72 "easy-to-make" snowflake patterns for all holidays and seasons. The "easy-to-make" part is debatable. Some of them are pretty intricate that they're hard to cut just right. But, they are pretty cool designs. I pulled out the book today and cut out the 4th of July snowflakes they had patterns for. My son is really into cutting these days so I gave him the junk mail to cut up while I cut these out. While we are sometimes creative, we are also sometimes messy. Here's our mess:
Here's a red star snowflake.
Here's a blue Statue of Liberty snowflake.
Here's a white Liberty Bell & Firecracker snowflake.
Here they are hung in our window. I only cut out four snowflakes today. If I were having a party or actually being social this weekend I may have cut more but these four work for us.

Stay tuned for more snowflakes as the seasons and holidays change.