5 Kid Friendly Love Inspired Activities

This weekend will be filled with lots of love and family time given that it is Valentine's Day and Family Day! So to keep busy, we are decorating the house, baking and cooking some of our faves. We thought we would share a few of our kid friendly valentine and family day inspired activities and crafts!

1. Upcycled Carboard String Heart

For this activity all you need is:

cardboard

sharp knife/blade

embroidery string in different colours, ribbon or wool, or even twine

cutting surface/cutting board

Draw a heart shape on your cardboard, place on cutting board and cut out heart with blade or knife (or scissors depending on the thickness of your cardboard). Next cut slits in your cardboard approximately 1/2 to 1 inch long and 1 inch apart along the edge of the heart. Using your string/wool/twine, begin wrapping your string in different directions around your heart through the slits which you have cut. And voila! You have a handmade up-cycled valentine. There are other variations of this craft, such as using cardstock instead of cardboard, and a hole punch instead of the slits. OR simply create a heart shape with wire and wrap the string in varying directions. Feel free to get creative with colours and textures too!

2. Pinecone Rose Bouquet

We love to collect fallen nature items on our hikes, and we had a bunch of pinecones collected, so we decided to turn them into a pinecone bouquet.

All that you need are:

1-12 small round pine cones (depending on how many you want in your bouquet

the same number of sticks

a vase

paint (eco-friendly, non-toxic preferred)

glue gun

Once you have your pinecones, heat up and use your glue gun to glue the sticks to the base of each pinecone. Allow to dry. Take the paint and pour it into a recycled paper cup, about two inches deep. We chose pink, red and white for Valentine's Day colors. Dip your pinecones in the paint until they are fully covered in paint. Drip off as much paint as possible and put in the vase to dry. Once your bouquet is dry, simply enjoy!

3. Make a Heart Shaped Pizza

No dough, no problem! We have rounded up and tried all 4 of these recipes from allrecipes.com. Every single pizza dough option was delicious:

Traditional Dough

No-Yeast Dough

Gluten Free Dough

Vegan Pizza

Homemade Pizza Sauce Recipe

Add toppings and bake according to the the directions in each respective recipe. We purchased a heart shaped pan a few years ago, but you can also use a circular or rectangle baking sheet and just shape the dough into a heart before adding sauce and toppings.

4. No Bake Heart Shaped Birdfeeders

Now that your bellies are full, why not make a little heart shaped feeder for our feathered friends? These no bake bird feeders are easy and fun to do! You simply need to gather the following supplies:

1 cup of bird seed

2 tablespoons of coconut oil

heart shaped cookie cutter(s)

twine/string

pot to melt the coconut oil

bamboo or glass straw

cookie sheet

parchment paper

Scoop the 2 tablespoons coconut oil into the pot and melt the coconut oil on med/low heat for about 30-60 seconds (it usually melts really quickly). Next, add the 1 cup of bird seed to the pot and mix with the coconut oil. Place the cookie cutters on top of the parchment paper on top of the cookie sheet. Scoop the birdseed mixture out of the pot and press into the cookie cutter(s). Take the straw and use it to cut a hole in the birdseed mixture that is pressed into its heart shape. This hole will be used to hang the bird feeder with the twine or string to a branch when they are ready to be hung outside. Place the cookie cutters on the pan into the fridge for 30-60 minutes. When they are done, hang with your string and keep an eye out for your new bird visitors! (Don't forget to check out the bird tracker in our recent post).

5. Create your very own valentines.

We have created a few cute free templates that you can download and print and color too: