Valentines Crafts: Homemade Playdough

For Valentines Day, I wanted to send my daughter to school with more than the traditional store bought Valentines Day cards so we decided to make homemade playdough to accompany her homemade valentines!


Simple Cooked Play Dough

3 cups of flour
1 1/2 cups of salt
3 cups of water
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 Tablespoons cream of tarter
Red food coloring

In a saucepan, mix the dry ingredients. In a measuring cup, mix the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the saucepan and mix until well combined. Cook the ingredients over medium heat for about 1-2 minutes until dough forms a skin and pulls from the sides of pan. Let cool and knead for 2 minutes. Store in an airtight container.

Here's my finished product.

Since I was giving them as gifts for Valentines day I made hearts...

And bagged them in Valentines cellophane bags!

Valentine's Day Family Dinner

Since we have two children, it can be difficult for my husband and I to go out and going out to a nice restaurant on Valentine's Day, let alone any day, is not worth the hassle or the expense. So instead, we made a nice dinner at home with dessert and we watched one of our favorite shows afterwards.

I decorated with a large Valentine's Day sign.

For dinner I made Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo, garlic breadsticks, and a salad. I don't have a picture but I will include my recipe for homemade Alfredo Sauce. It's so simple and delicious, I never buy store bought Alfredo anymore.

For dessert we made strawberry cupcakes. We made the boxed kind, they we're simpler since I was busy all morning. My eldest daughter and I had fun decorating them!

Valentine's Crafts: Homemade Valentines

This year, my daughter and I made homemade Valentine cards! We made owls, fish, and elephants. I got the fish and elephant valentine idea from Family Fun, the owls were my idea!

To make the elephants and the fish:

Materials: 

card stock

scissors

glue stick

googly eyes

colored markers

small heart stickers (optional)

Cut a medium heart shape template about 2 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches. Trace this shape for the second elephant template, but add a curved trunk. Cut a large heart template about 4 inches by 4 inches. 

Now that you have your templates, you can start cutting out your shapes. 

For each elephant you will need 2 medium heart shapes for the ears and 1 face/trunk shape. Glue the tips of two heart-shaped ears to the back of the head. Free hand small hearts or use small heart stickers and place on ears and trunk as shown. Attach googly eyes and add your message. I added mine to the back since I used glitter card stock.  I used the message 'You're unforgettable.'

For the fish you need to use the large and medium heart template. For each fish you will need to cut out 2 large hearts and 1 medium heart. Glue the two large hearts with the top of the hearts overlapping as shown and add the tail. Lastly, add the googly eyes and your message. I used the message 'You're oceans of fun.'

The owls are harder to explain. I will try to add a template later since I free handed all of the shapes.

To make the owl you need to free hand a template for the owl shape. Then freehand a long heart shape for the chest piece. You will need a circle template for the eyes, a triangle template for the nose and free handed mini hearts for the claws. To assemble, glue the chest piece to the body, add the eyes and the nose and claws. Lastly dray a pupil for the eye, we used glitter paint because my daughter wanted it to be all glittery. 

Here's a picture of the larger basic shapes.  

Here's the finished product: