Making Valentine Pockets

Yesterday after church I pulled out a bunch of paper and glue and crayons and some of my washi tape and Creamie and I sat down to make Valentine pockets.  When I was growing up we made Valentine pockets every year.  They are basically a paper purse, as Creamie called them yesterday, that we would hang on our door and my parents would sneak a surprise in them each night leading up to Valentines day. I have always loved this tradition.

And I don’t ever need an excuse to use washi tape.  This morning while I was writing this post Creamie asked me if her surprise tomorrow could be more little tapes.  I might have created a washi monster yesterday. Haha!

I don’t remember having an exact start date, we usually made them about a week or a week and a half before Valentines Day.  And we never got candy in our pockets, it was always a not sugary surprise.  This morning Creamie found a little blue car in hers.  Blue is her favorite color and she carries blue things around with her all the time.

Creamie really loves paper crafts.  That girl is the happiest with scissors and glue and her rainbow of crayons.  The other day I found a blue piece of cardstock glued to her wall behind her door.  Yep, glued.  She tried to hang it up with the magnets from the fridge, and when that didn’t work she grabbed her gluestick.  I just left it there, it was too funny to take down, and I don’t know that I want to see what kind of surprise it leaves on the wall…

To make Valentine pockets each person will need two paper plates, and something to stick them together with.  You can staple, or sew them together with yarn, or anything else that will hold those two together.  And then add in whatever else you have. Crayons, glue, scraps of paper, washi tape, glitter, sparkly confetti, paper doilies, and a big pile of cutout hearts.   See, not an exact science, but a really fun project to do with kids.

So we sat at Scott’s desk yesterday afternoon and cut and glued and crayoned (her word not mine) for 45 minutes or so and it was awesome.  I cut out some hearts and a few letter C’s for her to glue on, but the rest of it was all her.  I think she is of the mindset that more is definitely better. I think she would have piled things on there all day, but we had to leave for dinner at grandmas.  But I think that I’ll make Valentines with her again this week.  She had such a good time.

She wrote her name on hers.  She gets all the letters in there, a different order everytime, but they are all in there.  She always sticks her tongue out when she is concentrating.  And writing your name is serious concentrating business.  Also, I love how her little knee is up on the table.  Better leverage that way.

I cut one of Creamie’s paper plates into a heart shape, which you can kind of see in the lower right picture above.  That way you can put stuff in it easily.  Then I used a hole punch to make holes and gave Creamie a piece of yarn on a bobby pin so she could sew the two plates together.

Then I punched two more holes in the top and added another piece of yarn to hang her pocket up on her doorknob.

She was really into the washi tape.  I think I might have to do more projects with these with her.

We both had our game face on.  This gluing is serious stuff you know.  I think the most important part with making these is to let your child do whatever they want with what you have laid out.  And be prepared to wash glue off the table and out of their hair.  I never could have predicted what Creamie’s would look like.   And I think it will be fun to compare this first one to the next years.  And thanks to digital photography I am pretty sure I’ll have pictures of this process every year.

She was so proud of her creation and so excited to show her finished product to her daddy.  And that makes me smile.

And it made her smile too.  Like a lot.  We are totally doing this again next year, and every other year till she decides she’s too old for treats in a paper Valentine pocket.