Valentine Decoration

For me, the Saints and Mardi Gras have overshadowed Valentine's Day. But, it's a fun holiday so I thought of this craft for my daughter and I. This Valentine Door Decoration works on several fine motor skills and the concept of big to little. For this project, you need construction paper, scissors, stickers, yarn/string, and a hole punch.

Fold the construction paper in half and free-hand 1/2 of a heart. I made graduated sizes so we could work on biggest to smallest. But random sizes or all the same size would work too.

My daughter loves cutting so I let her cut out the hearts.

Once the hearts were complete, she arranged them in size from biggest to smallest. (Now that I've had time to process the activity, decorating the hearts first then arranging them helps the project flow better.)

She decorated the hearts with stickers while I cut 4 pieces of yarn (approx. 5 inches long). Holes were punched into the top and bottom of each heart, except the bottom heart which only needs one hole (at the top).

My daugther took each piece of yarn and threaded it through the holes on the hearts. We knotted the loose ends. For the top piece of yarn, we made a loop to hang the decoration.

She is proud to hang it on our front door!

DIY Puppet Theater

Puppet theaters are fun for the whole family! It's a great way to tell stories, sing songs, and let our imaginations run wild. I made this puppet theater a couple of years ago (before I knew about blogs so I don't have step-by-step pictures). This design uses curtain tension rods to support the theater in a doorway. An easy version of the same concept would be to use a kitchen curtain:

Take one curtain panel that is at least 36" long
Insert a tension rod into the top
Fit the rod into a doorway (a spot with room for the audience)
Move the rod to the desired height making sure it touches the floor
Your puppet theater is ready. Oh, what stories they will create! Aside from being very easy to assemble, this puppet theater is easy to store and takes up little room. (Bear lost an eye in the making of this post, but will be on the mend soon.)

Mardi Gras Mask

With a few items lying around the house, you can create a unique Mardi Gras mask. You will need:
A mask template (I used one from here.)
Cereal box or any other thin cardboard box
Colorful pages from magazines and/or colored tissue paper
Ribbon
Any type of embellishment (craft jewels, stickers, pom-poms, rick-rack, etc.) and/or paint
Hole punch
Exacto knife
Glue
Scissors
Crayon/Pen

My daughter chose the mask template she wanted. I printed it, cut it out, and layed it on the cardboard to trace. To get her involved in the tracing, we colored the outside edges of the template with a crayon.

As a result, we had an outline to cut out. I used an Exacto knife to cut the eye holes. While I was cutting, my daugther was tearing the magazine pages into small pieces. I had to help her with this because she was tearing them too small.

When we were both finished, we covered the mask with glue and layed down the magazine pieces. It's ok to let the pieces run over the edges. They will be trimmed in a later step. Once the glue dried, we applied a layer of glue on top of the mask. This has a few purposes: 1. Seals down all the pieces, 2. Makes the mask sturdier, 3. Gives a uniform finish.

Once that coat is dry, the edges of the mask and the eye holes were trimmed of the excess magazine paper. We also punched holes on the sides to tie the ribbon.

Finally, the mask is ready for some spice. All I had on hand was paint so we added different shapes and designs. But anything can be used to embellish--stickers, sequins, beads, small pasta (color it with food coloring), rice (color it with food coloring), big craft jewels, feathers, Mardi Gras beads, etc. When it's dry, tie ribbon on each side.

Your reveler is ready for the big parade!

DIY: Mardi Gras Pillowcase

Grab your sewing machine or borrow one from your tante! The kids will love their Mardi Gras pillowcase and it's pretty simple.


Materials:
1 yard of Mardi Gras cotton fabric (actually 35" would work better)
thread
ruler
scissors
iron


Gather your materials. Bring selvages (finished edges) together and fold in half. Cut fabric so it is 20 1/2" wide.

Open up the fabric so it is a rectangle. Along one short edge, press down 1" as shown in the picture above. This will be part of the banding at the opening of the pillowcase.

Once the 1" is pressed, then press down 4". This is all done on the same edge. Stitch down the band close to the bottom (the one with the 1" fold). To spice it up, you could use a contrasting thread and/or zig-zag stitch. You could also add rick rack once you have stitched down the fold.

You should have a band across the top of your soon-to-be pillowcase. Now on to the side. I use a french seam to keep the inside nice and tidy, but you can use a regular seam. Above is a picture of the first step of the french seam. With wrong sides together, stitch 1/4" seam. Once you have the 1/4" seam, turn the pillowcase inside out, open it up so the seam can be pressed flat. Then, fold the pillowcase in half along the seam you just stitched and press.

Stitch along that fold 1/2". Once complete, it will look like the above picture. Just to mention again, a regular one-step stitch will work, but the edges of the fabric will ravel. This is ok. It's just my preference to use the french seam. With the side done, move onto the bottom and stitch it closed. I used the french seam on this as well. I also made a 1" seam because the pillowcase was too long. Your pillowcase is now finished!

Here are the Halloween and Christmas pillowcases I made last year. This idea can go beyond holidays to include special days such as birthdays, the first-day of school, vacations, etc.