Two Easy Valentine's Day Crafts for Kids

Are you looking for some easy inexpensive crafts to make with your kids to make for Valentine's Day? Here are some fun crafts they can make to decorate your home or to give as gifts to friends or family members.

Valentine's Day Sun Catchers

 For this craft you will need:

• Red or pink construction paper
• Broken crayons
• Waxed paper
• Glue stick
• Iron
• Scissors

Put two pieces of red construction paper together and fold both of them in half. Cut a large heart shape out of the middle of both pieces of paper so that you have matching heart shapes in the center of each piece of paper. The hearts that you removed from the paper you can also hang up for Valentine's Day decorations.

Next have your children take the paper off the broken crayons. Use an old cheese grater or potato peeler to make crayon shavings out of the broken crayons.

Cut out two pieces of waxed paper that are slightly larger that the hearts you cut out of the construction paper.

Place the crayon shavings in between the two pieces of waxed paper. Place a thin dish towel on top of the waxed paper and then iron with a warm iron until crayon shavings have melted.

Place the waxed paper with the melted crayon shavings in between the two pieces of construction paper so that the waxed paper is showing through the hearts that were cut out. Use a glue stick to glue the waxed paper in place and to glue the two pieces of construction paper together. Your child's finished sun catcher is ready to hang.

Toddler variation: To make this craft more toddler friendly, use contact paper instead of waxed paper, and have your toddler help tear up small pieces of pink, red, and white tissue paper. Let your toddler arrange the tissue paper on the sticky side of a piece of contact paper and then place another piece of contact paper on top of the first piece, sticky sides together. Glue the contact paper between the pieces of construction paper as described above.

Valentine's Day Heart Necklace

This is a fun craft for preschoolers to make. It helps them work on their cutting and lacing skills. For this project you will need:

• Construction paper 
• Drinking straws
• Yarn
• Hole punch
• Scissors

Draw a heart on a piece of paper to use as a pattern. The heart should be approximately two inches in diameter.

Help your child trace and cut out approximately twelve hearts. You can cut the hearts out of construction paper or scrapbook paper. Use a hole punch to punch one hole in the center of each heart. Next cut several drinking straws into pieces approximately 1 inch each.

Cut a piece of yarn 18-24 inches. Help your child string the hearts and the pieces of straw on the piece of yarn, alternating hearts and pieces of straw. The pieces of straw keep the hearts from touching each other.

Tie the ends of the yarn together and the Valentine's Day necklace is complete.

Valentine's Day is a great time to spend time with and do holiday crafts with your kids. Take a few minutes and help them do one of these fun crafts today.

Hanna is a busy Mom, scrapbooker and writer from Wichita Falls, TX. She has a knack for finding free baby stuff online. One of her favorite resources is www.freegifts4kids.com.