lifestyle crafts valentine party post

Below is the post I did on the Lifestyle Crafts blog showing some of the projects we created for Elle's Valentine Party. Visit the Lifestyle Crafts blog for more great ideas....

Hello! This is Michelle from Product Development, and I'm so excited to show you some of the projects I made for my little girl's Valentine party yesterday! I'll be honest when I was younger I hated this holiday. I specifically remember faking sick on Valentine's Day in fourth grade just to avoid any awkward moments with boys...boys were scary (and I'm hoping my girls inherited this sentiment - at least until they are much, much older)! But now, I can't get enough of the red and pink, the hearts, the cute projects and food...so I decided to plan a party with Elle - my 3-year-old party planner in the making.

One of my favorite things about dies is how easy and simple it is to make any project look professional. With just a few of the Love release dies, we created several projects that made our party a success. It was easy, fast and if I would have started sooner (we made most projects the night before the party) we could have created several more things to enhance the detail of the event.

Happy Valentine's Day!

---Michelle

VALENTINES

At the party each child was asked to bring valentines for a card exchange. For Elle's we used Mini Valentine (DC0044) and Banners and Bows (DC0046).

Each child also had a mailbox with their name to put all of their valentines (thank you dollar bin at Target!). To label we just die cut the smallest heart from Nesting Hearts (DC0042), wrote their name and adhered to the front of the mailbox.

SEQUIN HEART CLIP/FELT HEART PIN

We wanted something to give each of the kids when they arrived at the party. For the girls, we made sequin heart clips for their hair. For the boys, we made felt heart pins to wear on their shirts.

To make the sequin hair clip:

Step 1: Die cut 2 hearts from felt for each hair clip. We used the smallest heart from Nesting Hearts (DC0042).

Step 2: Glue strand of sequins to one felt heart starting at the outside edge. Hot glue works best.

Step 3: Cut small slit at the base of remaining felt heart and insert bobby pin or clip. Glue that felt heart to the back of the felt sequin heart.

To make felt pin:

Step 1: Die cut heart and banner from felt. We used the second smallest heart from Nesting Hearst (DC0042) and

Step 2: Stitch I (heart) Mom on banner with black embroidery thread.

Step 3: Glue banner to heart. Glue pin to back of heart.

HEART PICTURE WALL

At the party we also had each child get their picture taken in front of our chalkboard wall. We die cut several hearts in different sizes from Nesting Hearts (DC0042) then taped them to the wall. Because we were using a chalkboard wall, we just drew white chalk designs around the hearts leaving a space in the middle where the child would stand. If you don't have a chalkboard wall, you could easily create this on a large piece of butcher paper and hang up or simply attach die cut hearts and shapes to a wall or door where a child could stand for a photo.

HEART WREATH

I've seen these felt heart wreaths popping up on several blogs. I'd been wanting to make one but never seemed to find the time to go look for a stryofoam or metal heart wreath form so I figured I'd try to create one myself completely from die cuts.

To make the heart wreath:

(I used felt, but you could also use fabric or paper)

Step 1:

Nest the two largest dies from Nesting Hearts (DC0042) on your Epic platform and die cut.

Step 2: Die cut several circles of felt. I used Nesting Circles (L-CC-001)

Step 3: Place a small dot of hot glue in the center of a felt circle and fold in half. Fold in half again to make a triangle shape and glue to hold in place. Repeat with all felt circles.

Step 4: Attach the folded circles to the die cut frame. I alternated the direction of each circle.

HEART GARLAND

It seems like we make some type of die cut garland for every season/holiday in our house. It is such an easy project for kids. Elle made this heart garland all by herself which brings me to a quick "kid tip". The Revolution is the perfect tool for kids to use by themselves. They're back for a limited time, so if you have kids and don't own a Revolution I'd snatch one up before they're gone! It's used almost daily at my house.

valentine's party

Last Thursday, Elle threw a Valentine party. While it was definitely filled with chaos, I think everyone also had fun! (thanks to Laura for the photos)

THE PARTY DETAILS

Attendees:

10 3-year-olds

9 moms

6 younger siblings

2 older siblings

Activities:

Photos on the chalkboard wall with sequin heart hair clips (girls) and felt heart pins (boys)

We taped die cut hearts to the chalkboard wall and drew white chalk designs around the hearts. Each child got a hair clip or pin to wear and their picture taken in front of the wall.

Musical Hearts

We put several die cut hearts on the floor and played music while they danced and moved around. Once the music stopped, they had to find a heart. Each time we took away hearts until we had a winner.

Valentine Exchange

Each child brought valentines to give away. We found metal mailboxes at Target in the dollar section for everyone to collect their valentines.

Snacks

It was mid-morning so we wanted a healthy snack. Heart shaped granola bars with fruit leather embellishments, grapes, apples, yogurt and a mini bottle of water.

Decorating Cookies

We rolled out sugar cookie dough on sheets of parchment paper for each child to cut out heart shaped cookies. We baked their cookies while they molded and played with the remaining dough. After the cookies cooled, the frosted and decorated their cookies to take home.

Balloons

We bought mini 6" heart shaped balloons and filled with helium for the guests to take home.

3-year-olds (minus Ayden and Nate who came a little later)

Chalkboard wall photos.

Musical hearts.

Passing out valentines for the valentine exchange.

Collecting all of the valentines.

Snack time.

Heart shaped granola bars with fruit leather embellishments. We made homemade granola bars and then cut them out with heart-shaped cookie cutters.

Yogurt with wooden spoon and fruit for dipping. We put vanilla in first and dropped spoonfuls of strawberry yogurt on top to make a heart.

Cutting out sugar cookies.

Frosting sugar cookies.

Playing with balloons.

christmas kick off party

Last year I heard about a family who let their kids sleep under the Christmas tree the night they put it up. I thought it sounded like such a fun tradition so this year I decided to start our family's annual Christmas Kick-Off Party. My hope was to create an event just for our little family that

- gave us time to be together before the start of such a busy season with friends and extended family

- let us talk about our plans for the season and how we wanted to make it special for ourselves and others

- gave us a chance to learn and remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas

Overall, I loved how the party turned out and can't wait to continue the tradition. (i only took video of the party so don't have many pictures - these are just images saved from the video file.)

This year for the party:

- Elle and I made invitations for everyone in our family, and she passed them out to everyone at Family Home Evening a week before the party.

- We planned the party for the day after Thanksgiving so we'd have the day to put up Christmas decorations. We spent that Friday putting up and decorating our tree and setting out other basic Christmas decorations.

- For food, we ate appetizers: sourdough and pumpernickel bread with hot artichoke dip, veggies and dip, sparkling cider and cranberry juice

- During the party, we ate, planned, read the story of Jesus' birth from the scriptures, and opened up one present (pajamas - traditionally my family always opens pajamas on Christmas Eve, but I wanted to use pajamas as part of our kick-off. For Christmas Eve, the girls got to open a book which we read before bed.)

- After the girls put their pajamas on, we all watched a Christmas movie together. This year it was old Christmas cartoon classics.

Other things I envision for party but didn't incorporate this year:

- Sleeping out under the tree

- Hot chocolate/popcorn during the movie

- Talking about memories/looking atphotos from past Christmases

- Writing letters to Santa

Here's a few pics of our Christmas decor - thanks again to my sis-in-law Julie.

party favor sneak peek

Elle and I have started making one of the party favors for her Valentine party....sequin heart hair clips for the girls. I came across this post at Grosgrain Fabulous and loved the idea.

valentine card links

For Elle's Valentine party, we're planning a valentine exchange. We haven't decided what valentines we're going to make yet, but here are two cute ideas...

Scratch and Win

Ah-choose You

freezer pop molds

I've been looking for a healthier alternative to Otter Pops and found these molds. I think they look perfect. Has anyone tried them???

I also think these ring pop molds are fun...maybe for a summer party!

liv's 1st birthday

Liv turned 1 the day I got back from New York so we stuck a candle in a frozen Otis Spunkmeyer cookie to celebrate. She loved it, but I still wanted to do a little more for her birthday celebration at Sunday dinner. I didn't have much time and was way too lazy to even go to the grocery store (thanks Rachel for supplying more eggs Sunday morning when I ran out!). There are definitely a lot of things I'd like to do better or try in the future. Fortunately, we always celebrate with a porcupine theme for 1st birthdays (it all started with my first birthday and my parents made a chocolate cake with a cupcake head and decorated it with 6-month-old candy corns).

CAKE and CUPCAKES: Chocolate with pink marshmallow frosting. Small individual porcupine cake for Liv; cupcakes for everyone else.

PARTY FAVORS: I had resigned myself to the reality that I just didn't have time or energy to do much for this party. But when I woke up Sunday morning, I once again couldn't stop myself and decided to try making some party favors. I had to come up with something that used supplies I already had at home so I thought of no-bake chocolate cookies turned into little porcupines. In theory, I think the idea could still work - my execution this time around not so much. Next time, I'll buy chocolate kisses to use as the head - chocolate chips were too small so I tried using melting chocolate wafers. I wrapped each chocolate porcupine in a clear bag and attached a die cut pink paper porcupine printed with birthday text.

APPAREL: Pink porcupine shirt for Liv.

THE PARTY: After dinner we sang to Liv. As you can see from the photos she wasn't so sure about the whole thing. Papa pulled her hand away from the cake after she tried to grab it which resulted in lots of tears (no nap that day didn't help either!). Elle stepped in to help blow out the candle and then Liv got to eat the cake all by herself.

We love you Liv. Happy 1st Birthday!