Kid-Friendly Valentine Banner

Kid-Friendly Valentine Banner

Posted on by Mama
Last year my son (three years old at the time) and I spent part of a cold snow day creating a cute little Valentine project for aunts and grandmothers (of course I kept one for myself). Although they all might have been a bit biased, these cute little banners were a hit; so today I thought I would re-share our kid-friendly craft with all of you. I came up with this quick banner idea by combining a couple of Pinterest projects with some of my son’s favorite things — paint and glue.

 To create your own Valentine banner you will need:

  • brown paper lunch bags
  • empty toilet paper/paper towel roll
  • red washable paint
  • scissors
  • glue
  • string

To begin the project, cut a paper bag right above the bottom fold. Then cute along the two outside edges to give you two rectangular banner pieces. If you want, you can cut a triangle out of each of those pieces or just leave them square on the bottom. Cut as many bags as you desire for your project. If your child is old enough to handle the scissors, great but make sure an adult supervises this task (I let my three year old, cut on some scrap pieces, but he wasn’t up for the first part of this project).

TPheartstamp2Next, shape the empty toilet paper roll into a heart. I started by creasing the top inward, being carefully not to make creases in the rounded parts of the heart, and then I creased the bottom point of the heart. After you have the shape to your liking, pour some washable paint on a paper plate. Have your child grasp the TP heart roll around the middle to hold its shape, dip an end into the paint and stamp it onto each banner piece. Your child can redip as necessary.

After the paint dries, flip over each banner piece and run a bead of glue along the top of each one. My son loved doing this and it really didn’t matter that he got a little sloppy (you might want to cover your work space before this step). Meanwhile, I cut string long enough to span each banner with a small gap between and extra for tying off at the ends. After the glue was in place, I came along and pushed the string into each bead of glue. We let it dry over night and by the next day we had a truly heart-warming Valentine banner to hang about the house.

If watching your youngest glue paper bags to his fingers, the table and the cat is not your idea of a good time, you might try one of these alternative methods. 1) Punch a hole at the top of each side of your banner pieces and run the string through the holes to create your finished banner. 2) Fold the top of each banner piece over the piece of string and staple the flap in place to create your finished banner. Which ever finishing touch your choose, pick one that works best with your child’s taste and strengths (and your mama mess index).

Going Home Again

Going Home Again

Posted on by Mama

smalltalkmamalogoThey say you can’t go home again, but I’ve never put much merit in that old adage. After all, I go home. . . all the time. Of course, it’s not quite the same — I’m older, family members are absent and most things don’t look as they did way back when (except my bedroom, which is a completely different topic), but it’s still home and it’s a good place to be.

That being said, I gotta tell ya, I’ve been seriously missing my bloggy home at Small Talk Mama. After the complete crash last fall, throwing in the white towel and dabbling in a new blogging venture for a few months, I just kept thinking of my home [page] and have decided to return.

No, it won’t quite be the same — posts have been lost, comments obliterated, my focus has shifted a bit and I’m rebuilding from almost scratch — but with all these changes there is still enough of Small Talk Mama, with it’s bright yellow sunflower, warm orange colors and a focus on family, to keep calling it home. I’m doing a bit of spring cleaning and rearranging to the old girl but her essence is still the same, so I hope you agree that Small Talk Mama is still a good place to be.

The Easiest Way to Get Flaky

The Easiest Way to Get Flaky

Posted on by Mama

 

snowflakes

January is just one of those months that seems to get the short straw when it comes to celebrations and decorations. We just came off three straight months of holidays while wrapping up the old year with the granddaddy of all decorative occasions — Christmas. So if you’re feeling the winter blues and your home needs a quick splash of fun, try making these cute coffee filter snowflakes to decorate your home. Literally, this must be the easiest and quickest way to make flakes, but be warned:  it can be a tad bit addictive.

All you need to cut out these cuties, are some regular coffee filters (not the cone variety) and scissors. Flatten a filter and then fold it in half four times, so that you have a wedge shape with the point being at the center of the filter. Now just start cutting. It’s so much fun to experiment with different cuts and shapes to create truly original works of art, but the best part is unfolding your flake. If you want to get rid of the fold lines, heat up your iron and give it a once over. Have fun!

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