5 fun and affordable valentines crafts for kids

Valentines day is just around the corner and so what a fantastic time to spread the love and share a bit of happiness. Of course I know that valentines is traditionally a celebration for adults to profess their love for another (or some sort of cheesy cringy thing like that anyway!) but I also think it’s a fun time to celebrate and do some crafts with your little ones, because basically I look for any excuse to do crafts! It might get them thinking and talking about who they love and care about and it’s a great time for you talk to them about feelings and relationships etc but let’s face it what we really want is fun ways to entertain our children so here are some valentines themed activities to have a go at.

Yarn wrapped hearts

This is a great one for hand eye coordination and looks really effective with little prep and mess. You can also talk about colours and textures and encourage your child to make their own choices.

For this you will need some card board cut into a heart and some string, wool or ribbon in any colour. The obvious choice because its valentines is red but I think the more colours the better and it will be more interesting for your child if they have a variety so that they can make their own choices.

Then your child can wrap the wool or whatever you are using round and round the heart until it is full. There is no right or wrong really so this is a great one for any age. You might want to tape the end of the wool to the cardboard to help them get started.

You can get as creative as you like with this one as once you have wrapped your wool around this is a great basis for weaving other things in. You can tie on pom poms or strings of beads. If you have strings of sequins or feathers these would look great too. You can then tie the finished master piece up and hang it in pride of place.

Heart printing

This activity could be a messy one as it involves paint so make sure you prepare for that in advance!  

All you need for this is paint (I chose red but any colour will be fine) in a tray or on a plate and a heart shape to use to print the paint onto the paper. If you have a heart shaped cookie cutter this is the easiest option but if not then you can easily make your own from a toilet roll tube like I did. Just crease each side of the tube and point one of the creases outwards and push the one on the other side in to the middle to create a heart. If it won’t stay in shape then you can add some tape across the two humps of the heart to pull them together a bit and keep them in place.

Your child can then print hearts to their hearts content. Remember although you might want this to look neat and uniform young children don’t really care about this. They are much more free with their creativity than us adults are so let them just go for it. The end product is the least important part of a creative activity.

Once dry you can use this to create some valentines wrapping paper if you have gifts to wrap. You could also print hearts onto a gift bag or onto a valentine’s card

Wax resist hearts

The exciting thing about wax resist is that children think it’s magic! For older children you can talk to them about why the paint doesn’t go onto the wax but for younger ones I am all about the magic.

For this you will need a white candle, paper and some watery paints, these could either be children’s watercolour blocks if you have them or just mix some poster paint with water. Use the candle to draw hearts onto your paper, your child can do this especially if they are a bit older but for younger ones you might want to do this bit to make sure that there is enough pressure on the candle for it to work. You child can then paint over the hearts with the watery paints to reveal them.

Love you to pieces collage

This is very cute and would work well as a valentines card. Children of all ages can do sticking and they love drizzling the glue or using pritt sticks which work just as well. Again don’t be disappointed if they don’t stick the pieces all neatly in fact you many end up with them all stuck in a pile on top of each other or more than likely they will stick them down and then keep wanting to peel them back off. It really doesn’t matter it is all part of the creative entertainment. If you keep stopping them and try to guide them too much they are likely to lose interest much quicker.

All you need is some glue, and some collage pieces, these can be cut up bits of paper, sweet wrappers, ribbons, bits of wrapping paper etc etc basically anything that you can find to stick on it. You will also need cut out a heart shape or just draw one onto your paper like I did. The likelihood of a 2 year old sticking their pieces within that heart are slim so if you are bothered then maybe the cut out heart is the better option for you.

Let them stick their pieces all over the heart and then when its dry you can write on it somewhere ‘Love you to pieces’ and give it to someone they love.

If you are using PVA glue then you can add some red paint or colouring for a bit of extra valentines magic

Shaving foam printing

This is a super messy one but lots of good fun and a fantastic way to talk about colours and patterns.

Fill a plate or tray with shaving foam and then drop paint on to it. Let your child swirl it around using a wooden skewer or a straw or lolly stick etc to make swirly patterns. Watch how the colours mix together and make different patterns. Then you can pop a heart shaped piece of paper on top to print the design onto the paper. Lift it up and see what patterns they have made.

I hope you have fun crafting and being creative with your little ones over the next week or so, don’t forget to comment below to let me know if you have tried any of these or if you have any other valentines themed activities that you would like to share.

If you are looking for any love themed gifts for little ones this valentines I have these lovely heart prints available, all of them come with a personalised option to make them extra special