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Deconstructed Valentines

By Rachelle 26 Comments

If you’re preparing for Valentine’s Day crafting with your preschooler, one of my best bits of advice is to set up an open-ended process art experience that allows your child to make choices and feel creative.

Our local market does a good job at displaying an appealing array of holiday goodies just as you enter, and I’m often a sucker for such marketing ploys. They recently set up a lavish Valentine’s ordeal, and before even getting close to the milk aisle, I already had a shaker of heart sprinkles and a Fancy Nancy Valentine’s Day book (affiliate) in my hands.

My daughter skimmed through the book on the way home, and then devoured every word as soon as we had a chance to sit down together. We’ve been talking a lot about this mysterious “hearts and flowers” holiday, but I don’t think it actually began to sink in until we read the book.

Once we read the book, mere moments passed before the request to “make Valentine’s cards” came in and Project Deconstructed Valentine’s was underway!

It all began, quite obviously, with a pile of doilies, cut-out hearts, glue, and glitter.

And then the cutting began. And more cutting. Cutting, cutting, cutting. Any vision I had of  frilly Valentine’s with heartfelt messages was quickly replaced with one of hearts, cut into smithereens. A bazillion little fragments of love, splintered all of the table.

It wasn’t enough to cut up a sheet of paper. Oh, no. I had to cut hearts out of the paper first, and then hand them over for further cutting. Since we were collaborating, I was then instructed to glue the little shards to a doily, which is what you see here. A true collaboration, full of process-based goodness. And while the end-result may not be what I had in mind, I actually think we ended up with something far more interesting and fun to look at in the end.

How to Make Process Art Valentine’s Cards

Although I didn’t start with this plan, in retrospect I think this is what led to our success…

  1. Look at examples of Valentine’s Cards or Read a Book about Valentine’s Day
  2. Set up some basic Valentine’s materials – Doilies, Red and Pink Paper, Glitter, Glue, Scissors, Markers
  3. Provide materials in a color scheme that will make the end product look cohesive (i.e red, pink, white, and silver)
  4. See where it takes you without prescribing how the child should make their card
  5. Gift them, hang them, or repurpose them. N wanted to decorate the house with ours, and I had a package to send off to grandma and thought this would make for a festive gift topper.

Kids Valentines Ideas Deconstructed Valentines

More Good Stuff

  • Sweet Potato Heart PrintsSweet Potato Heart Prints
  • Valentine SnackValentine Snack
  • Self-serve Valentines for KidsSelf-serve Valentines for Kids
  • Kids Valentine Ideas – How to Set up a Self-serve Card StationKids Valentine Ideas – How to Set up a Self-serve Card Station
  • 30 Valentine Activities for Kids30 Valentine Activities for Kids
  • 6 Kids Valentines Day Activities6 Kids Valentines Day Activities
  • Easy Valentine BookmarksEasy Valentine Bookmarks
  • Handmade Valentine Cards: The Amazing All-in-one EnvelopeHandmade Valentine Cards: The Amazing All-in-one Envelope

Filed Under: Holidays, Pre-School, Valentine Tagged With: cutting, experiment, process-based, scissors, valentine

Comments

  1. amy says

    January 24, 2011 at 5:58 am

    Those look like fun! And they are much more beautiful than perfect shiny glossy mass-produced valentines!

    Reply
  2. JenChris says

    January 24, 2011 at 11:02 am

    I’m posting a pic of my little guy’s valentine for this year. Don’t know if posting a pic will work, but I thought I’d give it a try.
    I was talking to my 3 and a half year old son about Valentine’s day because there is a party coming up at his little COOP preschool. We talked about how it was a day to show the special people in your life that you love them by giving them something special, aka, a valentine for each of his classmates. So I drew a heart and asked if he could make one, and he did, by the glow of a flashlight and filling his heart with lots of little pencil drawings of rockets and fire. I’ll be printing out a pic of him making his valentine and mounting the pic on some cards. Love it. These kids are geniuses.

    Reply
    • rachelle says

      January 24, 2011 at 9:19 pm

      Yay! You’re the first person to test drive the new photo-comments! And I love the picture and your story on so many levels: drawing by flashlight! filling the heart with rockets and fire! making his first heart! yes, kids are geniuses, and we can learn so much from their imagination and fearlessness.

      Reply
      • JenChris says

        February 4, 2011 at 12:37 pm

        Here’s an update to our “Project Valentine.” On the back side of the card it will read, “We made these cause my friends are special to me.” This was a collaboration of cutting, gluing, whole punching and printing…all while little brother gremlin slept.

        Reply
        • rachelle says

          February 5, 2011 at 10:37 pm

          thanks for the fab follow-up! it looks like each friend also receives a photo of how their valentine was made!? this is a rich lesson in giving from the heart (truly no pun intended!). i would love to get a valentine like this. beautiful. (and, i also noticed that you taped off your floor to make a big “table” – what a good idea!).

          Reply
          • JenChris says

            February 6, 2011 at 5:03 am

            We often tape paper on the floor to draw right there in front of the wood stove. We’d been given a HUGE bag of broken crayons and the boys wanted to dump it out…thus the paper on the floor. To protect the floor and test out the crayons. We ended up there for Valentine making, and it worked out pretty well to catch glue and glitter.

  3. Chelsea says

    January 24, 2011 at 1:42 pm

    We have a Valentine’s project coming up at our preschool, too. We learned today that each child needs to bring 20 valentines. That means we’ll be making 40! I have pink, red, and white paper on my list, and while I was planning on hitting Diddams for some stickers for decoration, I think we’ll try glue and scissors first to see what we get. Thanks for a perfectly-timed post!

    Reply
    • rachelle says

      January 24, 2011 at 9:21 pm

      40 Valentines!! I’d love to see pictures of how this goes for you all.

      Reply
  4. Debi says

    January 25, 2011 at 8:47 am

    I know my 2.5-year-old would love doing this – & I’m sure the 6-year-old would jump in. It sure would be fun to make Valentine’s this year instead of buying them. Thanks for the inspiration!

    Reply
    • rachelle says

      February 5, 2011 at 10:38 pm

      my pleasure 🙂

      Reply
  5. Steph at Modern Parents Messy Kids says

    January 26, 2011 at 4:47 am

    Can you believe we’re already doing V-day crafts?
    Here’s mine – it’s a shaving cream valentine. Very sensory oriented and right up your alley 🙂

    http://www.modernparentsmessykids.com/2011/01/tutorial-shaving-cream-valentine.html

    Reply
    • rachelle says

      January 31, 2011 at 11:49 am

      Thanks for sharing the link. What a unique idea, Steph!

      Reply
  6. Charlene Long says

    January 31, 2011 at 10:54 am

    These are adorable. She showered them with love and creativity.

    Reply
    • rachelle says

      January 31, 2011 at 11:54 am

      Thanks. They are all HER 🙂

      Reply
  7. SoCoMom4James says

    February 1, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    Oh, those are gorgeous! We usually hand out valentines from the Dollar Store to the classmates and make special cards for teachers and loved ones.

    I try to keep it simple and use our pad of construction paper and some stickers, markers, and leftover scrapping things. It makes for a couple of fun afternoons.

    Reply
    • rachelle says

      February 1, 2011 at 9:23 pm

      Keeping it simple is always a good idea, especially when there are so many Valentines to make!

      Reply
  8. Teresa says

    February 4, 2011 at 8:14 am

    There is something amazingly gorgeous about child-made things. I think they’re beautiful. I was going to make Valentines with my daughter this weekend. Now I can’t wait!

    Reply
    • rachelle says

      February 5, 2011 at 10:43 pm

      thanks! i hope you all had (or will have) a good time making valentines.

      Reply
  9. Childlife says

    February 4, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    What a lovely idea! We’re Fancy Nancy fans around our place too and this looks like a project that would be right up our alley 😉 I especially love combining a good read with an art project — always a bonus!

    So very, very glad you joined in with MMM!

    ~Michelle @ 5MFSN
    http://inthelifeofachild.com

    Reply
  10. Childlife says

    February 4, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    (I’m hoping this comment isn’t a duplicate — I tried earlier and it didn’t seem to take)

    Your Valentines are absolutely lovely and I particularly love the idea of combining a good read with an art project! Beautifully done!

    So very glad you joined in with MMM — we’re going to have to give this project a go at our place (I have a Fancy Nancy fan of my own!)

    Happy MMM!

    ~Michelle @ 5MFSN

    Reply
    • rachelle says

      February 5, 2011 at 10:49 pm

      Hi Michelle! Your website is beautiful, and I’m glad to have found it. This was my first intro to Fancy Nancy, and I think we might be hooked. The language in the story cracks me up! It’s truly Di-Viiiiiiine!!

      Reply

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