Valentine's Cra(p)ft

As Claire is almost 3 now (HOW??) and is starting to enjoy being artsy and creating things, I decided to be a daredevil and try her out on a craft. An actual craft. I'd had plans to attempt this concept around Christmas, but A) I didn't feel good basically ever around Christmas and B) Christmas is busy (obviously). Valentine's Day seemed a better choice.

Because I try to rid myself of excess stress and pressure (particularly in the Mom-ing department), I have specific guidelines for the kinds of crafts I will even consider attempting off of Pinterest. There are some incredibly talented folks out there who are willing to attempt daring and expensive activities with their small children. Props to them, but no thank you on my end. I won't consider a craft if it isn't super simple and if I don't have all (or at least most of) the supplies at home already. Given the unpredictability of toddlers, I'm just not willing to spend money on supplies for a craft that she may refuse to do.

So, I shopped around on Pinterest and decided this paper plate wreath fit my criteria. Claire really enjoyed making Valentine's Day cards this year, and I knew she'd get on board with a craft specifically for her room. I told her we were going to to make a craft...to which she responded, "I want to make a crap!"

Oops. We need to work on our pronunciation, apparently.

We gathered our supplies from around the house: tissue paper (from my hoarded stash salvaged from gifts of yore), a paper plate (that's square, not round and is also printed. We just turned it upside-down to hide the print and called it a day), my 3-hole punch (to use to make one hole...because I'm not sure I own a regular hole punch), ribbon (from the same salvaged hoard as the tissue paper because I'm the family member that collects all the ribbon, bags, and tissue paper after gifts are unwrapped), and a bottle of Elmer's glue. I cut the tissue paper into squares and showed Claire how to pinch it up and dip it in the glue. She caught on really quickly and was all over that craft. We probably worked on it for 10 minutes with utter concentration. I was rather proud. 

After we finished and let it dry, we hung it in her room...and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to dislodge it. 

Action shot! She was really quite adept. I was impressed. I should stop short-changing her abilities.

Finished product. I would have kept going and filled it out more, but she ran out of steam. I definitely am not going to force crafts on her, so this is how we left it.

We took it up to her room and decided to hang it on an empty nail on Baby Sister's side of the room. We recently moved Claire's pictures/decorations that we had on that side of the room and consolidated them all on her "new" side, leaving a bunch of nails in the wall. We decided just to leave them, in case they'll work for New Baby's decor as it goes up. That North Carolina print is her very first one. Also, the evening that we made the wreath, Claire and I had a friend come over for dinner (her husband is in the same night class as Brad, so we invited her to join us), and Claire dragged her upstairs POST HASTE to show her the wreath. It's a big deal, y'all.

And that's the story of our very first cra(p)ft. I hope everyone enjoyed your Valentine's Day.