Valentine's Day, Part 2

I have to admit that posting about the torturous process of last year's Valentine preparations was somewhat cleansing.  Rehashing it made me really thankful that I started early and had the Big Kick machine to help cut out all of the shapes for most of them.  The twins, in addition to helping with the assembly process, signed all of their own valentines this year.  Once I got the supplies ready, Cassidy did hers all by herself,  I made River's for her, which was fine with her as long as they had a gnome theme.  Everything in River's world has a gnome theme.  In fact, she is planning on being a gnome when she grows up.

Since the Valentine's themselves were finished with a few days to spare this year, I had a little extra time to let the kids come up with Valentine themed clothing ideas and do some sewing for them.  It was nice because the kids got to come up with the ideas themselves, and then I got to sketch them and disappear into my sewing studio for a few hours to actually make the ideas into clothing.  Plus, since all of my kids are tall and thin, we always have pants and leggings that are a couple of inches too short by the time they actually fit in the waist.  Projects like these are perfect for adding embellishments to the hem of a pair of pants to make them longer and get a little extra wear out of them.




Quinn wanted a Yoda shirt with a heart.  Lucky for him, I had a plain grey shirt that he had landed a big stain right in the middle of the first time he wore it.  I had saved a picture on my phone of one that he liked, but I can't remember where I originally found it.  I just drew out the basic applique shapes by hand and stitched them on, covering the stain.  He loves it, and I'm pretty fond of it myself.











Chloe wanted to wear her favorite ladybug pillowcase dress, but to go with it she asked for black leggings with "BIG ruffles" and a headband with a "BIG heart".  I did my best.  The ruffles are a bit too big for my taste, but the little ladybug is happy, and she does look pretty darn cute.  It's exactly what she wanted.  Sometimes, you have give up grown up taste in exchange for an extra BIG smile from your kid. Totally worth it.















River, I suppose because of her obsession with gnomes, loves red and white polkadot fabric.  She calls it "toadstool fabric".  She asked for a "toadstool fabric comfy shirt" with hearts on it, and "valentine pants".  The shirt was easy enough. I just made a basic peasant top with cute elastic detail on the sleeves. The sleeves aren't really 2 different lengths, by the way.  The picture was just taken at a funky angle.  I don't know what "valentine pants" are, but I dug out a pair of Cassidy's old white jeans with heart shaped pockets.  They were too short for River, so I just added a polkadot band around the cuff that matched her shirt while adding the needed length.  This is what it looked like in the end.  I tried to get a picture of it on her, but she is too fast for the camera! You can see a close up of the appliques at the top of this post.








Cassidy just wanted a headband with heart antennae on it, and she also declined having her picture taken.  Given what the kid has been through lately, including this past week, I didn't push the issue.

As I mentioned, before I could get down to the fun of creating these clothes for the minions, we had to complete their valentines for all of their classmates.  Chloe thought up her own, Quinn and Cassidy adapted theirs from pictures they found online, and River just asked for a gnome theme.  This is what the final products looked like:


Chloe's were little pink handbags made of card stock (cut out on the Big Kick, thank goodness). We stamped a message on the inside, "Friends are flowers that never fade", and attached a small packet of wildflower seeds in each one.  For projects like these with the kids, those scrapbooking glue dots are awesome!  Then she signed them and folded them closed, sealing each one with a heart sticker.  Enjoyable and painless for everyone involved, just like it should be.

Quinn's were little plastic sandbox shovels with a scoop of mini Swedish fish attached with a bag.  The tags (you guessed it, I cut them out with the machine!) said "I Dig You" with each child's name.  He signed them on the back of the tags.  I gathered the supplies while he signed his name, then he got to help me scoop the candy and I bagged them.  Again, a smooth and pleasant process for both of us.  We finished all of those the weekend before last, which meant fewer to get done the day before everyone needed them for classroom parties.








Cassidy was even easier.   I busted out about 20 paper hearts on the now famous Big Kick, and punched the holes to attach the pipe cleaner arms and legs on 3 hearts at a time.  I used a heart shaped paper punch to cut the smaller hearts for the hands and feet.  then I gave all of it to Cassidy along with a pack of big googly eyes, a pen and some glue.  She did the rest herself, including stapling a pack of heart shaped fruit snacks to the back of each one.  She is very proud of them, had fun and they are super cute.  Oh, and all of the teachers got little bags with the ingredients to make one s'more.  For the bag toppers, I just printed them out on postcard sheets, folded them in half and stapled them on after we filled the bags assembly line style.























For River's, I got to disappear into my studio with a giant bag of Hershey's kisses, never a bad thing in my opinion.  For each valentine, I put together 3 gnome kisses.  You can find the project instructions including an easy way to make a template for the hats here.  River did get to pick the felt colors for the hats.  She chose pale pink, bright pink and red.  We also got a large Hershey's kiss for each of her 3 teachers and made big gnome kisses out of those.  I cut out the felt hats one night while I was watching a movie with the kids, and on Friday I assembled the kisses.  For a while I had a cute but creepy little gnome army marching across my craft table.  See the big kisses in the back? Then on Saturday, I bagged them all.  For the bag toppers, I cranked out more shapes on my machine and stamped them with little girl gnomes and the words "To gnome you is to love you".  I wasn't wild about stapling them together for 2 and 3 year old kids, so I just used the hole puncher to make 2 holes in each and tied a ribbon in them to hold everything together.  Then I printed stickers out on the computer that read "Gnome kisses for Valentine's Day, From River".  Little Bean got to help stick those on the backs, so I guess she did help a little.





















So that was it.  And I even had time to throw together the cupcakes that I signed up to bring to River's class party.  We survived the preparations without any kid broken hearts, and without me needing a martini last night.  I mean, I had one anyway, but not because of V-day crafting hell.  It was Blueberry-pomegranate, if you must know, and it was delicious.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll share that recipe with you later this week!