Monday, February 8, 2010

Valentine Fun




Sohvi and Max really wanted to cut out heart decorations for Valentine's Day, and finding myself with no good reason not to, I agreed to attempt it. So, I taught Sohvi how to cut out symetrical hearts by folding the paper down the middle, and Max mostly watched and requested asymmetrical hearts, shredded other paper and helped hang them up on the window. While I withstood the temptation to offer placement advice to my kids, and/or hang them all myself instead. That is how much I love my kids, I can stand back and let them make an unbalanced, lopsided, yet lovely splay on my windows all by themselves. I however busied myself making valentine heart snowflakes out of colored paper and abstract valentine art, so I could contribute something.

That was really fun. So it was a good mix of eclectic kid hearts as well as my crazy overboard detailed snowflakes. (which is why I don't usually do decorations.. I spend too much time on them, only to throw them away later, because they've been destroyed, and/or I don't want the bother of saving them and pulling them out for every separate occasion). The heart snowflakes do have really good potential for kid combined with adult projects.

They do the art (theoretically, because by the time I thought of it, Sohvi didn't want to do abstract, and Max's attention span had expired on the whole project). So you (being the adult) cut out the snowflake from the dried art (or your kids if they are old enough to cut their own snowflakes). Sohvi probably could, but was content with cutting plain hearts. So I had to provide the abstract art AND the cutting.
You can do any kind of medium, but white crayon makes for cool wax resist effects if you watercolor on top of it. (which I didn't do, I did red, which I obviously like the effect of as well)


Watercolor is funner for me with abstract, so I did a combination of crayon and watercolor in valentine colors. I also messed around with a tiny hole punch in the snowflakes. It was totally fun, and I made myself stop at four, so I didn't overpower (supposedly) my kids hearts. I like the compliment of both of them together on the window. Try it out!

9 comments:

  1. The snowflake hearts are amazing!!! And I think the kids' placement in the window is just fine...but I have to admit that I cut out all our heart decorations and hung them myself. :)

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  2. thanks Suzi! ..and yeah, their placement isn't BAD, it just isn't how I would have done it...

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  3. Wow!! You posted!! Quite frankly, I'm most excited about that!! LOL

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  4. I agree with shameless--hooray for a posting! And I love your balance of art-vs-kids'-creativity display too!
    I LIKE IT!!

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  5. you have always been super good at making elaborate snowflakes! it's fun to see how you did it with hearts.
    i like decorating for holidays, much to my suprise. it does take effort, but it's fun for kids and makes good memories.

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  6. So cute!! I can't wait to drive by and see the real deal!

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  7. that is cool! I love the snowflakes!! and I also love the picture of your kids in your header. How stinking cute is that! What a fun project. Speaking of placement, I should post a picture of my valentines wall and then you can see just how much restraint I used in letting my kids actually place the words "Happy Valentines Day" it is pretty pathetic but alas, I did not change it when they went to bed. And it only has to be up for 3 more days!!! Thanks for the post. Loved it!!

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  8. Well, its beautiful and I'm proud of you for letting them have so much control of the whole thing. That would have DEFINITELY been a big struggle for me. :) As for all the stuff you (and Eve) do artistically/decoratively... I can't even go there. I'm hopelessly inferior. Ah, well. I do so enjoy what you do!

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  9. Yeah! You posted! TWICE!

    What a cute window. I'm having a hard time convincing Anthony that window decorations are a good idea. I think he's against it because he always complains about our neighbors who put up decorations for every holiday, so he'd feel like a hypocrite. Or something.

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