In addition to our annual Valentine’s Day tea, Gracen and I have a couple of other Valentine’s parties and classes to attend this year. And since we don’t do the whole candy thing just yet, it means getting a little bit more creative with the ‘treats’ she hands out. When I asked her what she’d like to give her friends, she responded with Valentine’s slime (thanks I’m sure to our Halloween version for her ballet class friends) and heart wands (thanks to a Kiwi Crate package we received from our most recent PBK story time). And because both take a little bit of prep work, we started early… More time left over to figure out what we’ll bring for the 30+ kiddos in her Strong Start class, right?
These little wands are beautiful and easy to make, and although some may think they’re a little ‘girly’, we believe that hearts and magic are for everyone. ☺
Here are the materials we used for the project… Wooden dowels, adhesive glitter foam sheets, acrylic paint, a paint brush, and some ribbon. The best part is that we picked up all of these things at our local dollar store, so not only were they inexpensive, but we only had to make one stop – always nice with a toddler in tow.
First off, we started the project by painting our wooden dowels. Miss G does not always enjoy having her hands covered in paint, so we attached clothespins to the ends of the dowels so she could rotate them as she painted without painting her fingers. When she declared a dowel done, I went over the stick with a couple of quick strokes in order to smooth out the globs.
Then, because the tips were not painted where the clothespins were, I was able to stick the dowels into chunks of {gingerbread} play dough to dry upright.
A couple of days later, when our paint was good and dry (it actually only takes about an hour), we came back to our project. We started by drawing a heart shape onto a piece of cardboard and cutting it out to use as a tracer.
Next, using our newly-made tracer, we traced hearts onto the backs of our foam sheets. Gracen was happy to do the first few, and let me do the others when it came to this job.
With some strategic placement, we were able to fit 4 hearts onto each of our foam sheets, but of course it depends on the size of your tracer and the size of your foam sheets.
Next, we cut out the hearts.
Now to actually assemble a wand, you need two foam hearts, a wooden dowel, and a cute little helper.
This right here was Grae’s favourite part of the whole project… Peeling the backings off of the hearts!
With one heart shaped peeled, we placed the sticky side up on our work surface and placed the unfinished end of our dowel in the centre of the heart, up maybe an inch or inch and a half from the bottom.
Then Grae peeled the backing off of another heart, and we carefully placed it on top of the dowel, making sure to line up the hearts as closely as we could.
With the heart in a good position, Grae pressed everything together firmly.
Next up – the ribbon! We chose 3 colours, looped them in half, and cut them slightly shorter than the length of our exposed dowel .
Then we stacked them up and tied them onto the dowel at the base of the heart, giving them a little tug to coax them into falling downwards nicely.
Then, with a different, slightly narrower ribbon, we tied a bow right above the previous ribbon knot…
And finished off all of the ribbon ends with v snips.
And there you have it. Sparkly heart-shaped wands for Miss G’s little friends.
♥
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This afternoon Miss G made a little congratulations card for her sweet playmate Ainsley, who became a big sister 11 days ago. She decided she wanted to draw Ainsley and her new brother on the inside of the card, which was a big undertaking seeing as she’s only ever really drawn circles, triangles, squares, and happy faces. When she asked for help, I walked her through the parts we needed to add to her start of two smiley faces (“Okay, now what does Ainsley have on her head?”, “What about feet? Should we add some?”, etc.) and this is what she created. 
Today our first ever bandaid was needed… Miss G slipped her finger into the door of our lazy susan just as I was closing it and the end result was not good. The incident took the tip of her nail off, as well as the skin off of the top of her little finger. To make matters worse, she despised her bandaid, but after taking it off, hated seeing the blood and raw skin underneath. Ugh. Not fun for my sensitive little lady.
Gracen and I went skating for the second time today (see our first try 
First off, I have to say that I just love setting up fun play invites for Gracen to discover. The way her little face lights up when she finds something new just melts me. And she dives in so enthusiastically that I seriously could just stand back and watch her play forever. 
Gracen got all kinds of really cool cooking and baking supplies for Christmas this year, so I made sure to include them, but you could easily just use regular-sized bowls, pans, and utensils.
For the ‘food’, I filled up some small jars and bowls with dried goods from our pantry and added in a couple of spice shakers, one filled with rice and the other with some of the 
Of course our observant little girl noticed the cooking station within 10 seconds of exiting the bathroom, long before she had completely dried off or put clothes on. After retrieving a shirt, some underwear, and a hat (weird doodle!) it was time to play.
Pie anyone?
She whipped up concoction after concoction, offering us tastes along the way. ☺
She had so much fun that at the end of the night I simply tidied things up a little, made them looking inviting again, and left them out for her to explore again tomorrow. 
Since returning home from a long vacation 2 weeks ago, playing independently has been a lot more difficult for Grae. Instead of playing on her own, she wants to be right beside Mama {if not right on top of me} all. of. the. time. When I explain that I need a little bit of personal space to get something done or encourage her to play, she responds with, “But Mama is the best…” or “But I just want to watch what you’re doing” or “But I LOOOOVE you!” Oy. It’s not easy. 
Magnetic flowers and sunshines.
Hello Kitty, the only merchandised toy allowed in our house.
A new favourite…
Bear dress up.
Snacks.
A new favourite book.
Hilarious. (Listen to it 
Treat time. Homemade 
Taste test in progress.
Pooped.
After eight hours, we had a lovely sheet of fruit leather.
One of the few ready-made packaged foods I buy now and then is organic all-fruit fruit leather strips. They’re a very special treat for Miss G and I don’t feel horrible about letting her have one once and a while (as long as her teeth are brushed extra well that day), but I’ve always known that I should probably be making them at home instead. Recently, our local grocery store stopped restocking their organic fruit leather supply (I think they’re getting rid of the current stock and then no longer carrying them) and they were down to just two lonely strips on our last visit. It was the perfect push I needed to try making my own. 
Today I asked Gracen if she’d like to try making some fruit leather of our own, and she responded enthusiastically with, “Sure! Purple ones.” so I decided we’d try a berry variety first. Since we don’t really buy many berries when they’re out of season, we went with what we had in the freezer – strawberries, raspberries, and wild blueberries. Plus an apple and half a lemon for texture and a little kick.
As we were prepping the fruit, which really only consists of peeling and coring the apple, we decided to add a banana in the mix for sweetness.
With all of the ingredients ready to go, Gracen popped them into a large pot…
Then squeezed the lemon on top…
And added a little bit of water.
Then we popped the mixture on the stove to stew over medium heat for a while.
About a half hour later, this is what we had.
We let it cool for a little bit and then dumped it in the food processor to puree for a bit.
With our mixture nice and smooth, we lined a baking sheet with parchment paper…
And poured our berry mixture on top.
Using a spatula, we spread the mixture out to cover the entire base of the pan (on our next attempt, I’d spend a little more time getting it as evenly as possible) and put the pan in the oven on the lowest temperature.
Eight and a half hours later (yes – it takes a long time!) this is what we had.
We carefully peeled off the parchment paper…
And then I used kitchen scissors to cut it into strips.
A little parchment paper and baking twine later, we had our own homemade {and healthy!} version of a Fruit Roll-Up. ☺
After drying off the coins, we spread them out on a plastic serving tray…
During.
After.
A sweet little style.
Celebratory pony ride.