Lots of loving!

Here in our House of Curls, we LOVE to celebrate Valentine’s Day! We've been talking to our girlies about how much Jesus loves them and how it is His love that spurs us on to love each other. We daily converse about how we can show love in our own family by speaking kind words, helping each other, and obeying Mommy and Daddy.

Last year for Valentine’s, we made these cute little mailboxes for each other.

They are a really simple craft that kids of any age can help make. We fill them with love notes, coupons for acts of service, and of course, sweet treats. It’s really fun!

The girls enjoy getting to “deliver” us a hand-drawn picture or card and they get super excited to receive simple sweet notes that say “I love your laughter” or “I love it when you help me put away your clean clothes.” Simple encouraging words go a long way for little girlies.

For our sweet friends, we have been busy stamping, taping, and crafting away. My Mom gave me a Cricut machine for Christmas and we have been putting it to good use these past two weeks.

We have been cutting out hearts and leaves to make these cute lollipop flowers for classmates.

We crafted these precious love bug hearts for our youngest friends.

Both are so simple to make and require lots of help from the child!!

For the love bug card:

1. Cut out medium-sized hearts from cardstock paper.

2. Stamp child's thumb print onto the card.

3. Decorate the bug, using a fine print marker, google eyes (or colored jewels), and strong glue (I like E-6000 which can be purchased at a craft store).

4. Personalize the opposite side with a "catchy" phrase and sign child's name.

For the lollipop flower:

1. Cut out 3 or 4 small sized hearts and a leaf.

2. Position hearts so they look like a flower. Flip hearts over and tape down the back side to form the flower.

3. Punch a hole in the middle of the flower. Fold each heart to give a crease which helps take on the shape of the flower.

4. Write name on the leaf and tape down onto the back side of the flower.

5. Insert lollipop into the hole.

This last craft has become a House of Curls favorite, especially for youngest curly girlie, because it involves tearing up paper! What fun for a two-year-old to be given permission to tear something up!

Using the cheap paper plates, I cut out a large heart. I gave both girlies some scrap paper to tear up. Oldest girlie decided to cut the paper with scissors.

After we got a fair amount of torn pieces, we glued the paper all over the plate heart.

When finished, it turned out to be a really cute collage of colors!

The best part of the craft was that our youngest really could make it all by herself, which is something that she takes great pride in doing! This is a perfect little homemade gift for grandparents, teachers, and of course, Mommies!

Happy Valentine's, all you love bugs!