Love Notes

In this past week leading up to Valentine's Day, our family has been writing little "I love..." notes. Inspired by this Family Gratitude Project from Becky Higgins, we have been working on our own Family LOVE project.

Each evening when the boys are ready for bed, we have taken turns writing in something that we love. In addition to the LOVE in the middle, the lower left corner has our names and the year. I printed it at home and trimmed it to 8.5x11. I really should have used a larger piece of cardstock, but I did not expect that my little 4-year-old was going to want to write ALL his own notes, even the very long "I love blueberry pancakes."

Some things I loved about this project:

• My 4-year-old's determination to write his own notes and his pride in knowing how to spell "love."
• My 6-year-old's look of happiness when I read the notes to him last night. I think it made him feel special to hear the little things my husband and I had written down.
• That we found a way to add little extra sweetness to a holiday that has little in the way of traditions other than cards and candy.

I can't wait to finish it and hang it, and I definitely plan to do it again next year, though on a bigger piece of paper!

Wishing you a sweet Valentine's Day!

Loving Valentine's Day Crafts

We crafted up a small storm of Valentine's Day projects this weekend -- class cards, teacher gifts, small tags for little surprises, and even some lunchbox love.

Thanks to a scanner and Photoshop, my kindergartener only had to write the message once. I set the scanned writing into a heart in Photoshop, added some digital papers (from a free Christmas pack from Creativity by Crystal) and borders, and printed. Robby and I had a "race" to see who could cut out the most hearts. Then we worked assembly-style with me making the holes and sliding in the pencils and him adding tape to the backside. A nice team effort.

Next up -- these cute waterbottles came as a pack from Target. I made a quick tag in Photoshop (thank you Jessica Sprague for the scallop shape) and Robby wrote them out for his teachers.

For Joey's preschool teachers, I made up wrappers for Hershey bars. I made some extras and signed them from both boys so we can give them out to friends, cousins, and my grandmother.

I used that scallop tag in a few sizes for some extra notes to use around the house tomorrow, including as little flags on straws for their breakfast beverages.

For tomorrow's lunches, I cut out their sandwiches with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, added a napkin love note and a few Valentine sprinkles with their cut up strawberries. I like to think of them enjoying the little extra special touches tomorrow when they open their lunchboxes.

We also started and finished Robby's 100 days project, but since it uses a theme from a particular upcoming "green" holiday, we'll save that for another post.

Wishing you much sweetness for Valentine's Day!

Cheer on a Snowy Day

Valentine's Day Cheer on a Snowy Day

This was our 5th day of snow in less than 4 weeks, and I needed a bit of cheer. Not to mention some replacement for the tired and dried up Christmas wreath.

Enter Tumblr inspiration and this idea from Real Simple for paper garlands. All it took was pink scrapbook paper, quick fold-and-cut hearts, and string, and now I'm greeted by this happy little Valentine's Day garland at my door. I actually kept opening the door this afternoon just to smile at this. I think pink adds that taste of spring we need on a snowy day.

Now I'm looking around for more places to hang more garlands and other shapes I can make.