i heart valentines

Okay, not really. But Valentine's Day in kindergarten is the best. Everyone is required to give you a Valentine, so you get to wallow in the passion of cartoon characters and conversation hearts from all of your classmates. The crafty mama that I am, of course we had to make our Valentines. No punch-out and fill-in-the-blanks in this household! Here's what we started with:

We made salt dough, then rolled and cut out cute tiny shapes. We've never played with salt dough before, but it was a huge success. The only drawback, really, was that our cookie cutters were so tiny, we were cutting and cutting and cutting for what seemed like hours. And, we have enough cut and baked to make into next year's xmas ornaments. Anyway, once baked, they are hard and virtually indestructible. It is definitely necessary to poke the holes before baking! We then took them over to a playdate to share the painting part. This is final outcome, painted, strung, and adorned with a Valentine tag:

Twenty little crafty Valentine necklaces for the whole class! As usual, I think I was the most excited and interested in the project itself, but Small Person was very pleased to hand them around and declare that she made them. She came home with a bag of sugary treats, ubiquitous to any school occasion, it seems. Since I've already scarfed my (self-purchased) Valentine chocolates, I think hers are safe.