Share the Love: Create A Valentine’s Heart Mobile February 02 2016, 0 Comments

 

We love coming up with craft ideas for our kids to celebrate every holiday. It is hard to come up with craft ideas from scratch for every holiday, so we love to use Seedling’s kits for creative activities for our kids. For Valentine’s Day, Seedling asked us to come up with a craft using one of their kits and we jumped at the chance!

Using Seedling’s Make Your Own Dream Catcher kit, we came up with a way to use the wonderful supplies included in the kit to create a Valentine’s heart mobile. The Dream Catcher kit has tons of colorful supplies that can be used in so many ways.

Valentine’s Day is a perfect opportunity to talk to kids about love, friendship and kindness, so we took this opportunity to create an interactive craft with our kids. We asked our kids to think about acts of kindness they could do for neighbors, friends and family to show them that they care about them. Our kids thought of ideas and we wrote them on paper hearts that we would use in the mobile.

 

Supplies

  • Seedling Make Your Own Dream Catcher Kit
  • Several sheets of card stock in varying pastel colors
  • Large heart hole punch (about 2.5" - 2 7/16")
  • Medium heart hole punch (about 1"-1.5")
  • Tape roller or glue stick
  • Scissors
  • Pen

To start making the mobile, we cut six sections of embroidery thread, each 2 feet in length.  We tied the ends of each thread to the round wooden hoop included in the kit and spaced them out evenly around the hoop. Then we gathered the six ends of thread in our hand and tied them together in a knot so that the knot was about 5 inches from the hoop, also making sure that the knot was centered in the middle of the hoop. 

Next, we cut six more sections of thread, each 2 feet in length, in a different color. We tied one end of each thread to the hoop at the same points as the first threads we tied to the hoop. We tied the small pom poms on the hoop where the embroidery thread was attached, and then tied two of the large pom poms to the knot of embroidery threads at the top of the mobile. Then we lay the hoop down, spreading out the loose ends of thread and began making our cut out hearts.

To make the cut out hearts we used several sheets of pastel colored card stock and two sizes of heart punches. We used a 2 3/8 inch and a 1 7/16 inch punch.

We punched out 36 large hearts making sure there were pairs in each color. Then we punched out about 36-48 smaller hearts, also making sure that there were pairs in each color. You can use less hearts, but make sure you have a pair in each color and size.

We wrote our kids' acts of love and kindness on the large hearts. Next, we began to attach the hearts, beads and feathers to each loose strand of thread on the hoop. To make it easier, we divided the big and small hearts into pairs. We laid out our design along each piece of embroidery thread, alternating the large hearts with beads and small hearts.  

To attach the hearts we placed double sided tape on one side of a heart, laid the heart under a section of embroidery thread, vertically, and then placed the matching heart on top; sandwiching them between the embroidery thread. After we were done attaching all our hearts and beads to the threads, we finished off a few of the threads with pairs of feathers. There is no wrong way to arrange your hearts, bead and feathers so have fun with it! 

We hope to use the Valentine’s mobile to encourage our kids do something kind during the month of February. Whether it's saying something nice to a friend, sending a valentine to a cousin or giving dad a hug; spreading a little love and kindness is always a good idea!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Hallman + Ashley