I love to do crafts and have cute handouts and activities for church (and school, and friends, and - well you get the idea). I don't consider myself creative, but often use the help of others' talents. I decided to share what I'm doing for others just like me. It may be a link to where I found something or it might even be something *I* created. Right now I work as a paraprofessional at my kids' elementary - in special ed (autism). I started creating items for my 3rd graders this year and can't wait to share them with you. I am the 1st counselor in YW (first time in YW is this past year). I also have ideas for cub scouts and sunbeams posted, my previous callings.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Valentine's Day

I Love, Love, Love holidays.  It gives me an excuse to do a little extra and have a little fun.  Although if you ask almost anybody around me (especially my husband) and he'll tell you I go overboard.  I absolutely LOVE all the blogs out there with all the creative people that share their ideas.  I am one that loves to make things, but I'm not usually the one that originates the ideas.  In truth that is why started this blog is to share what I do (and where I got the idea from).  The only problem I see with this is that my friends will learn my secrets and all the teachers will be getting the same gifts :)  I won't look as creative then will I?


Holiday meals tend to be the color of the holiday.  We always have pink pancakes for Valentines Day.  Now I know that people often make them in heart shape, but if the truth be told I tried that once and they didn't look much like hearts.  Maybe I better practice before next year.  This year I did add to our pancake breakfast and made some heart shaped sausage patties.  I just purchased the sausage you slice into patties, sliced them up, molded them into hearts, and then fried them.  The kids loved this new addition.

I had all the links up where I received my inspiration for the items I made below, but my browser crashed and I lost the sites.  I'll try to find them all (because most weren't my ideas) to give credit where credit is due!


Boo's Valentine Idea I actually found last year here.  We already had our valentines then, but I LOVED it so much I knew I would do it the next year.  Then I found something else I LOVED and decided to combine the two.
I started with the picture complete with the design from the second site listed (the first time I used photo shop - I really want to figure out how to use it now) and stuck in some suckers.  I had these heart suckers already so I used them (this picture is smaller so a smaller sucker works better):


Then I added the card-stock and Fun Dip:
I had Boo write who it was to/from on that little flap holding in the fun dip.
 
 The completed class set:

 I made my boys in my Special Ed class at school bubble Valentines:


And for the Kindergarten class that two of my (meaning special ed) boys are in and the majority of the time I was in I made these:
The shovel idea I had from FamilyFun.com years ago (I don't even think sis was in school yet) and I always wanted to do it, but wasn't willing to spend that much on shovels in January/February. At the end of summer last year I found a bunch of shovel sets at the dollar store on clearance.  Yay!  I finally could make them.  I didn't want to fill them with candy because there is so much given already, but I ended up throwing in a fruit roll up.




Sis in middle school is obsessed with mustaches right now.  When I saw these I knew she would LOVE them.  She did.  She even traced and cut out enough for her friends, her homeroom class, and her brother's class: (This is the only link I need to find)

 

 


Sis took these to her teachers at middle school (I bought them the year before as a two pack in the Target dollar section):




Bugs and Boo gave their teachers/paraprofessionals these:



After school there was pink hot chocolate:


The table was decorated with a Valentine's Day table cloth, my roses my husband gave me, red candles, white plates, a pink heart cake (the other half of the cake mix was made into heart cupcakes for the lunch boxes ~ oh and speaking of lunch boxes they also had strawberry jam sandwiches the shape of hearts, strawberries, Doritos [as close to red chips as I had], and pink gogurts), and some fun straws:




Then for dessert we didn't even have the cake.  Instead I took some Pillsbury Cinnamon twist and tried to twist them into hearts:


After they are baked:


Then I dyed the frosting pink:


 I fed the kids and them had them ready for bed.  When hubby came home we put them to bed and had our Valentines dinner.  Since Valentine's day was on Monday this year we went out to dinner on Saturday then did something at home Monday night.  I threw together this from here:
 
 We had picked out a movie to watch after dinner.  Unfortunately we were too full to enjoy the treats.  I didn't eve realize until the kids opened the red hots the next day that they were red, pink, and white.  If I would've know that I would have bought more.  All sorts of ideas were popping in my head with those fun colors.  I'll have to watch for them next year!

 I also made this for the hubby (we just bought ourselves a bedroom set so that was our Valentine's Day present ~ this and the red hot basket and a card was all I bought this year).  Inside was 24 reasons why I loved him.  Oh, and I just printed it from here.

4 comments:

  1. U Blow Me Away doesn't work, I need help!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is anyone else having trouble with U Blow Me Away? It worked for me. When you click on the link it will bring up Google Docs. You then have to download the page. Let me know if that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the soap gift idea for teachers. Where can I find the printable "I was soapin you would be my Valentine" tag?

    Thanks for sharing your awesome ideas!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Soapin idea wasn't mine. The link is in the sentence above it (look for the green word).

    ReplyDelete

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