Heart Shaped Animal Valentine’s Crafts

Did you know that Valentine’s Day is the second most popular card-sending holiday? Christmas being the first. There are approximately 151 million Valentine’s cards exchanged per year, according to CNN. Just a little piece of random information for ya… we learn something new every day, huh?

Because it’s a celebration of love, my kids like to help me decorate paper hearts to fancy up our home and to also send as cards to our family (I don’t contribute to that statistic above, haha). This is particularly exciting for my four year old that has recently become the master at scissors… scary. She has been practicing with them in preschool and is fascinated by them so really, I could keep her busy for hours by letting her cut old newspaper into strips. Quite convenient when I’m rushing to get dinner done but hey, that’s not the point here. We were cutting out hearts, hers maybe a bit more like heart-triangle-squares, when I asked her if she wanted to make something with them. She found this quite intriguing, and that’s how our penguins and puppy dogs came to be.

You can cut out different sized and colored paper hearts and put together a variety of creatures with ease. This is all we needed:

We ended up using Mommy’s cut-outs that were shaped the most like hearts are supposed to be shaped… but my munchkin did everything else.

To make a penguin: Cut a large black oval, a white heart a bit smaller than the oval, two small orange hearts, and one even smaller orange heart.

Simply glue the white heart onto the black oval, glue the smallest orange heart in the middle of the white heart for a nose, and the other orange hearts are glued to the bottom for feet. Then add googly eyes!

To make a dog: Cut a large red heart, two large pink teardrop shapes, a small black heart, and two even smaller white hearts.

Glue the teardrop shapes together at the very tips and then glue the red heart upside down on top of the teardrops. Glue the black heart in the middle of the red heart for a nose and then add the two white hearts for eyes. Leave it as is or decorate with spots, stripes, more hearts… anything!

These two little guys are currently hanging on my wall, but we have made a few more to send to grandparents! What a special (and simple, and FUN) way to say WE LOVE YOU!!

Just remember… all you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt either. <3

Happy February, y’all!!