Toddler Approved Valentine DIY

Valentine's Day is such a weird non-holiday holiday. I really don't feel like its a gift giving occasion, I mean don't get me wrong if you give me something I’m gonna keep it… And trying to go out anywhere seems like the worst idea to me. But I do love any excuse to make stuff, and then force that stuff on to other unsuspecting people as thoughtful gifts. Since I’m new to this whole toddler thing, this year was a bit on the fly. I ended up with two crafts along the same theme that are generally toddler friendly and best of all you can do them separately or combine them as the ultimate valentine!

Toddler’s love painting, it’s messy, creative and has that subtle air of destruction they find so enticing. This was my starting point. I’ve really settled on watercolors as the best toddler paint medium, they are easy to set-up, clean-up, and wash-up. So here are you’re instructions for toddler friendly watercolor valentine hearts. 

1. Place watercolor paper, or any paper of your choosing (I recommend something on the sturdier side as these will be used in a card-like fashion) in a safe toddler friendly place.
2. set toddler loose on paper with watercolor paints and brushes, they might need some encouragement…painting is fun for adults too!
3. allow genius abstract watercolor works of art to dry
4. trace hearts in the size and style of your choosing onto said works of art and cut out (I recommend waiting until the toddler is asleep or you’ll spend the majority of your time trying to reclaim the scissors and prevent an emergency room trip)

Once you’ve created your hearts the possibilities are endless!
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I made a batch of my favorite sugar cookie recipe and the cut them out into a couple different sized hearts and iced them with royal icing (for a more uniform look I recommend not holding a fussy baby while icing cookies). Once the icing is very dry you can paint on it with gel food coloring just like you did on your paper.  Use a fine tipped paint brush and some clear flavored extract or vodka ( you might want to pour yourself a glass at this point) to dip your brush in instead of water. This helps the food coloring spread more easily on the icing and the alcohol will make the drying time faster. If you’re toddler is anything like mine you’re going to have to pay extra close attention or else you will find that they have consumed all of the cookies and are now mainlining the food coloring, so maybe hold off on that glass of vodka for now…

This is were I get fancy, or this is as fancy as I get… I used the water color hearts as tags for little bags of water color cookies, meta I know. Seriously though this was an easy and fun little craft and I think that it looks pretty nice too. You should give it a try, even if you don't have a toddler, I won’t judge.