14 Ways I Love You - Valentine Garland

Valentines Day is coming up and what better excuse is there to make cute little heart shaped activities! We used an old cardboard box to create a pretty lacing garland for Bubble's wall that she enjoyed threading herself. We will use the garland in the 14 days leading up to Valentines Day to create a keepsake full of reasons why we love her to bits :-)

WE USED:
* thick cardboard (we used the sides from an old box)
* large and small heart shape cookie cutters
* marker/pen/pencil
* scissors
* wool/twine/ribbon
* child safe needle
* coloured contact (we used red)

For more Valentines inspired ideas check out:

Toddler Approved!
Tales Of An Aussie Mum
Jada Roo Can Do
The Imagination Tree

I used a large cookie cutter to trace 14 heart shapes onto thick card and then cut them out.

Then made two holes in the top of each heart using a hole punch so they could be threaded onto some wool using a child friendly needle.
(If you don't have a needle check out this earlier post to see how to make one using pipecleaners).

Bubble sat for ages carefully threading and spacing her hearts along a length of wool.

We then hung her heart garland along her bedroom wall above her bed.

Using a small shaped cutter I traced 14 hearts onto the back of a sheet of red contact paper.

On each heart I will write something I love about Bubble to create little 'Ways I Love You' stickers that can be added to her heart garland.

Every night before Bubble goes to bed during the 14 days leading up to Valentines I will give her another 'sticker' for us to read together and add to her wall.
I've also made a garland for Squeak's wall and hung it above her cot, she might be a bit young to know what it's all about but she's definitely old enough to understand that we love her :-)
Im looking forward to adding these to the girl's keepsake boxes and maybe in future years when they are older they can make garlands for themselves or each other.

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”