Hand and Foot Print Valentine's

As Valentine's Day is coming soon I thought that I would share with you a Valentine that I enjoy having my kids do. I first did this project with my son when he was only 3 months old just using his feet. I have not gotten around to doing it since, which is a shame because it would have been nice to have a Valentine from each year showing the change in his foot size. Oh well, I guess we will just get to see a huge jump in size! This is a very easy project but is a bit messy and you have to be able to leave time for paint to dry before moving on to the next step. 

This year I decided to try doing hand prints also, partly because I think that by next year my son's feet will be too big to fit on a card (we might be stretching it a bit this year too). 


Supplies you need are: paper of any color that you like, paint in any color that you like, scissors, and glue. 


We used white paper with red paint for making the prints and purple paper for the background paper, or actual card. Choose what you like, you could even make things more layered using doilies or mulitple colors of paint. We went really simple this year. 

Directions:


1. Lay out lots of newspaper and get the paint and paper ready for dipping hands and feet. 


2. We started with our hands, dipping one in the paint and then holding the fingers together put in on the paper at an angle fingers out toward the corner of the paper on the same side as the hand you are using. 

3. Next dip the opposite hand and place it on the paper with the heel of the palm overlapping the heel of the palm from the first print, making sure to angle it so that the fingers point slightly away from the first hand print so that put together the two hand prints look something like a heart. (A photo is work a thousand words, check it out below).

4. Repeat on as many peices of paper as you would like and do the same process with the feet. The only difference being that you may want to do one foot on many pieces of paper before moving on to the next foot so that you can wash the first foot off instead of having both feet all messy. 

5. Let them dry completely and then cut around the paint to better define the heart shape. 


6. Glue them to your card (our card was purple construction paper folded in half). Decorate with cut out hearts or stickers. The first year that I did this I added a photo of my son to the middle of the heart which was really cute, I have not gotten that far this year because my printer is giving me problems :( 

You can add as many embellishments as you like. Older kids can do the cutting out by themselves and my daughter was able to participate in cutting them out with assistance from me. In fact learning how to cut things out is a really good thing to start working on with two year olds.


I hope that you and your kids have fun with this. I am guessing that there are some really crafty people that could make this cards look like a million bucks but I think that the simple version works also. Let me know if you try this and how it works out for you.


If you are looking for some fun Valentine's day themed books you may want to check the Cam Jansen series out (by David A. Adler). 
                                                            



These bug pop up books are a lot of fun to read too. 
                                                             

Todd Parr has some great books about feelings and feeling good about who you are and The I LOVE YOU Book is a great one to share with your kids around this time of year (and everyday).
                                                             

What are your favorite Valentine's Day books to share with your kids? I love adding new books to my children's library so let me know if you have a few that you just love.