Messy Valentines!

We decided to make some valentines to send to our nearest and dearest this year.

I usually shy away from this kind of project (the kind where the kids, the furniture, myself, and who knows what else end up covered in sticky substances), but I thought that it would probably be worth it.

The funny thing is, my kids don't even enjoy getting covered in goo that much. But they do like making things. Here, Little Sister just wants me to wash her hand before she dips it in the paint again. We go through this every mealtime--"No honey, I'll wash your hands after you finish, I'm not going to wipe that ketchup off between each bite."

Wash meeeeee!

I made a heart shape out of tape on cardstock then let her fingerpaint all over the top, then pulled up the tape leaving a white heart. I used electrical tape here since that's all I could find, but it didn't release that well, so I dug deeper till I found some of the painter's tape I knew we had hiding somewhere, but that was only a little better. Not sure what the best bet would be. I pulled up the tape right away (while the paint was still wet). Don't know if it would be worse if you left it on longer.

Suffering for her art

Anyway, here's the finished fingerpainting job:

Then after pulling up the tape (this is the other one we did, but same idea), I embellished the white space with a little glitter glue. It distracted from the places where the tape had stuck down too well.

Our other cards were pretty self-explanatory:

Fingerpainting, then glue a heart-shaped cutout over the top:

Trying to maximize the amount of fingerpainting that
showed through by cutting an extra-wide heart,
but it ended up looking a little...bosomy.  Bear that in mind when cutting.

Paint the hands with red paint and press onto paper one at a time to form a heart, then decorate with glitter glue to reinforce the heart shape:

We added heart-shaped stamps around the outside on this one.

And this one, my personal fave: we made a big heart out of tape and painted around the outside (Liam did the painting on this one), then peeled up the tape and made a heart with one hand from each kid in the blank space. It seemed to work better to make the heart with the fingers coming together for the point. This one is for Daddy. I'm pretty sure he doesn't read my blog so it's probably safe to show this to you before we give him the card. Hmmm, I wonder if he reads my blog? Honey, if you're reading this, act surprised. Also, let me know! If you're not reading, I can start posting embarrassing pictures of you!

Little Sister really does have all of her fingers. Maybe she's just a trekkie in training!