I love to do crafts with my kids. We actually don’t do them as much as I’d like to, but I try to do at least one craft around any given holiday. Crafting is a fun way to break up a bit of the mundane in the week and it lets your kids express themselves in different ways than usual. When I work on crafts and projects for myself I always find it to be therapeutic, so maybe I’ll even be giving my kids a little “therapy” by letting them craft too.

Here’s a good little Valentine’s Day craft for you to do with your kids. I did this with my 3 year-old… I decided it was too much [too messy!] to do with him AND my 1 year-old without someone else helping. As I just mentioned, this is messy! It’s a great sensory activity though, when we were done I just let Trevor go for it… he was “washing” all the way up his arms! 😀

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Marbled Valentine Craft

Supplies:

• paper doilies
• white foam shaving cream
• washable paint
• straw or toothpick
• baking dish with sides

⇒ Check your local dollar store for any of the supplies you don’t have on hand!

Instructions:

PREP BEFORE YOU INVITE YOUNG KIDS TO THE TABLE:

• Fold 1 or 2 doilies in half and cut out a heart-shaped hole in the center.
• Get your baking dish out.

INVITE YOUR CHILD TO JOIN YOU FOR A CRAFT.

• Cover the surface of the baking dish with shaving cream. Drizzle a little paint (we used 2 different colors) over the shaving cream. Run a toothpick or straw through the paint-drizzled shaving cream, this will give you a marbled look. I suggest using a little more paint than I did in the photos below; that was my dry run 🙂

• Place the 2 doilies on the marbled shaving cream and pat/press lightly.

∗∗∗Don’t let the doilies sit for any extra time on the shaving cream; they will get saturated and rip when you pull them up.

• Lift the doilies from the shaving cream and place, shaving cream side up, on a paper towel to dry. I found that letting them dry overnight is best.

—Once the shaving cream and paint are dry—

• Wipe the shaving cream off of the doilies with a paper towel. What’s left on the doilies is a pretty marbled pattern!

Now you can hang them on the fridge or around the house to decorate! Make cards out of them to send to family & friends (just glue or tape to a folded piece of construction paper)! Lots of possibilities… get creative with it!

I came across this marbling technique on viewsfromastepstool.com. Hope you have a great time crafting with your kiddos! Share a picture of your final project in the comments!