Oldies But Goodies

Thank You Cards (or Christmas Cards)

Easy Santa Photo Display

Valentines for 20

How to make 20 valentine's (and include your child).








Supplies needed:

1-2 pieces of large paper (easel sized) - we used one
Paint, markers, crayons, etc. (we used red paint mixed with silver glitter)
Cardstock or scraps in color of your choosing
Gluestick
Assorted stamps/stamp pad
Digital photo of your child
Photo Paper

1) Encourage your child to make a big painting or drawing



2) Wait for said child to fall asleep

3) Using a heart template trace 21 hearts on back of artwork, madly cut them out before child wakes up. I would definitely talk about this prior to doing it - I had prepared Monkey and we still had a little issue.



4) Find a digital image of your child (preferably not blurry - this may take a while) and crop for a close-up.

5) Print a contact sheet of the image (my printer does up to 35 small pictures per sheet with the name of the photo - so if your printer has this option remember to change the name of the jpg before printing (I changed to "XOXO, Monkey" & "Love, Monkey" or you can print out larger pics - whatever floats your boat (I was low on printer ink and paper so a contact sheet was perfect!)



6) Cut up 20 of the pictures - use the rest to seal envelopes and send to the grandparents, etc.. I will definitely be creating more of these for birthday cards, etc.

7) Use scrap paper or cut up cardstock (I chose to make the valentines 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 so I could get 4 per page. Cut out 21 rectangles.

8) Gather some heart stamps together.

9) Wait for child to wake up. Soothe child after he cries, "PUT IT BACK! PUT IT BACK TOGETHER!" tell him he can cut up other paper and glue it on - with glitter glue!!! You can mix the glitter!!!. Explain you have picked out some special stamps for him to use. Once child opens eyes to see stamps, carry quieted child and art supplies downstairs.

10) Give glue stick, hearts & rectangles to child - let him go wild.

11) Decide maybe it would be better for him to stamp - give him stamps and WASHABLE ink

12) Have him position hearts on valentines and then glue on a picture.

Voila! Valentines for 20

I used a punch to round the corners of the cards and Monkey helped. His favorite parts of this project (after the initial painting) were the glue stick and emptying the punch.

Thank you Thank you!

Thank you notes . . . this year I wanted Monkey to be a bit more involved. I had grand plans of him painting or drawing a picture for each one, etc. but unfortunately, Monkey's artistic output is neither on demand nor as prolific as his presents this year! But as Tim Gunn says, "Make it work!"

As you know, I love Kids Craft Weekly (KCW), so I borrowed her idea of making collages with glitter glue and then took the few pictures he did make, chopped them up and was able to make a bunch of notecards.

Just do it:

First you'll need to get your kid to make some art. Follow the directions above at KCW for the glitter glue pix (#2 Christmas Colors). I actually only used four of the sheets pictured below (decided to keep the yellow one whole for the art wall) and made 10 notecards with enough leftover I could have made a few more.



Hints and Warnings: This can be messy and you need to do some prep to make the glue and cut out a bunch of "stuff" to use for gluing. You might want to do all the prep away from the kiddos as Monkey went a little overboard in adding glitter & food coloring. Some batches were pretty solid (more glitter than glue with my glitter boy at the wheel) and made for some THICK pictures. He really enjoyed painting with the glue more than using it to glue stuff down too. I think I'll just mix glitter with tempera next time or just use the glue sans collage items. If your child is a color mixer (like mine) stick to one color of glue and you'll get more usable output. Red + Green = Brown. Normally I don't mind - it's all about the process and not the actual art - but since you're trying to put something cute on paper for relatives & friends . . . you aren't really looking for brown glitter smears!

Fast and easy - just get the paints, markers, crayons or dots (which I love) and have your kid go crazy on a few pages. The art work can be sparse and the cards will still turn out well (just use the most colored on portion).



Personally, I would do the next few steps alone if you have a younger child just for you sanity :) but they could help glue if you are more patient than I am!

Take an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of cardstock and cut in half to make two 5 1/2" by 4 1/4" cards. This is my favorite size card because you can make two out of one sheet of paper with no waste and they're not too huge to fill with writing! You can get envelopes (A2) at any paper store to fit. You can also just get a pack of pre-cut cards if you don't want to bother with cutting. You can also just use plain construction paper if you don't have cardstock lying around.

Then trim your child's artwork to approximately 4" x 5". At this point pick the parts that are most pleasing and chop away.



Affix to the front of the card with any type of adhesive. I used YES! paste just because Monkey went crazy with the glitter in a lot of spots so I knew double-stick tape or my favorite Tombo adhesive probably wouldn't make it through the mail.

For more kid "thank you" inclusion I like to have a conversation with Monkey about each gift. Sometimes I'll write the conversation verbatim on the card or I'll add what he said when he first opened it if it's a gem. For instance, when opening a construction loader from Aunt Lexy he said, "Oh!!" then paused (with appropriate reverence) and said, "It's bea-uuuutiful!"

Super Saxoflute conversation:

Mom: Why do you like it?

Monkey: Because it's beautiful! and fun!

Mom: Why is it fun?

Monkey: Because I love it - that's why I love it!!! Let's play marching band!

Mom: If Kevin was here what would you tell him?

Monkey: When he comes here I will say Thank you. When do I see him??

This project would also make a great set of notecards to give to a grandparent.

She's Crafty

Don't worry, not like in the Beastie Boys song (Stacey, I know you're reading this and chuckling) and now that song will be in your head all day - you're welcome. And since I'm crafting and have no time to blog . . . I thought I'd give a shout out to some cool sites so you can get your craft on. I'm desperately trying to finish an advent calendar and I'm determined not to buy anything for it (luckily, I have a lot of card-making items that I'm scavenging through but it's getting harder - I may have to cave - I'll write about it all when it's done).

The inspiration (and directions) for the calendar are from Kids Craft Weekly. I highly recommend this site and e-letter. Amber puts out a free email newsletter with all sorts of great ideas for crafting (with kids of course). She also just put out a Christmas Craft book for $5.00. It's a great way to kick start the season. Seriously, check out this site and get to it!

Another one you may already know about is the Crafty Crow. They pull from all over the blogosphere and grab great crafty ideas. I love this site just for the awe (and ahhhhh!) factor. I am SO not as crafty as these people! But I aspire and it's nice to read and think - someday. Maybe.

Enjoy! Oh and here is a direct link to the directions for the advent calendar I'm attempting. It's the one with the origami cups. Wish me luck! All the ones to buy were too far out of the budget - paper is just right!