Valentines Day Countdown: Heart Garland

I love all holidays...big, little, doesn't matter, I just love a celebration.  Holidays don't need to be about spending a lot of money. The little, fun holidays that come up every so often are a great time to build fun traditions with your kiddos. It's always nice to have something out-of-the ordinary to look forward to. And, honestly, all of the holidays we celebrate have great stories behind them...learning experiences!

Here we are, a week away from one of my favorites!  Okay, really, I know that Valentines Day is considered by many to be simply a "Hallmark Holiday," that is, an excuse for the card companies to guilt people into spending more money.  But remember what I said, it doesn't have to be about that.  I prefer to take a more optomistic look on life: why not take a day to show your family and friends how much you care?  What could be bad about that? 

So, each day leading up to February 14th, I'm going to post a fun little craft or activity that we've tried, culminating in a little celebration of the big day!  Hope you get to try some of these fun activities too, and let me know if you have any of your own to share. 

Here's first activity of the countdown: Shaky Paint Heart Garland

(Idea from Hands on as We Grow)

Materials:
Box with top
Paint
Construction paper hearts
balls

First, we removed all of the spices from the cabinet.  Note: this step was not necessary.  Then, we taped the paper hearts down into the box.

We added some blobs of paint.  We chose, purple, pink, and white...very pretty!

We threw in some plastic balls...

Turned on some tunes, and shook the box!

And we got this...it looks so cool!

After letting the hearts dry, we hole-punched two holes in the top of each heart. 

LB "helped" me string them on some pretty ribbon!

It was also fun to hide the extra heart under your shirt.  Shhhh!

Voila!

XOXOXOXO!