Valentine Kid Craft Party

Greetings from ice cold Montana! As I type this, it is -1 outside. Brrr! I’m here for five weeks visiting my husband who currently works here. Marcus is here, too, and we are especially thankful at this time for the freedoms and blessings of homeschooling. 🙂 It’s so nice not to have to get permission (or penalized) from a school to be together as a family.

This heart craft was just for the older girls. I felt they needed an additional craft.

I couldn’t leave before giving my sweet craft girls a Valentine’s party. 19 of my 23 girls participated. I pulled it off with the help of my oldest daughter, Darcie, and the oldest of my craft girls, Sammie. Thanks, Sammie!

My girls made Valentine unicorns, heart shaped bird feeders, Jolly Rancher lollipops, old fashioned Valentine cards, and paper plate hearts. Most of these ideas came from Pinterest. What would we do without Pinterest?

I did a lot of prep work for this party because organization is key! I pre-cut and hole-punched paper plates; Darcie crushed up Jolly Rancher candies, by color/flavor; I cut foam shapes for the unicorns; we set up each craft station with the necessary supplies.

For these old fashioned Valentine cards, I provided the following materials:

• Heart shaped doilies in three sizes (these are inexpensive and come in a package of 20-24 from craft and dollar stores)
• Glue sticks
• Heart stickers
• Markers
• Pink cardstock

In the past I divided my craft girls into smaller groups (randomly) and they moved from craft to craft that way, but this time I let the girls move freely and the only stipulation was that there could be no more than five girls at a craft station at a time. This worked beautifully! We also provided a play space with games and coloring pages.

Excuse some of my blurry photos! I have to be a quick photographer at these craft parties.

I kept the girls organized by providing each with a gift bag to hold their creations. As soon as a craft was finished, it was placed inside the owner’s bag before she moved onto another craft. When moms came to pick their daughters up, these bags were ready to go.

Darcie had the idea to give each girl a stamp, either on their wrist or a card, to show they had completed a craft AND cleaned up after themselves. Once each girl had all five to six stamps (one craft was only for the older girls), she could show it to Darcie for a Rice Krispy treat. The girls thought the stamps were fun, and they really did help to keep the craft flow going.

Sammie headed up a surprise for me, a giant Valentine’s Day card which all the girls signed. Awww! 🙂

♥ This was a three hour party. We served the girls pizza (with grapes, carrots, olives, and pink lemonade) before we started crafting. When one of the moms came to pick her daughter up, she asked me why I do this and how I got started. I told her I’ve always been a crafty mom and when I moved there I became friends with one of the moms of four of my craft girls and I started inviting all of her kids over to make crafts at my kitchen table. Then, one December, my daughters and I decided it would be fun to host a Christmas craft party for my friend’s girls, and a couple of neighbor girls we knew. It was so much fun for us that we started hosting more seasonal/holiday craft parties and invited more little neighbor girls to join in the fun. And here we are, 23 girls later with a craft room and a craft club that meets regularly. ♥

Advertisements