Valentine's Card Crafts, Part I

I am organizer of a toddler playgroup here in town; we have about 20 members and meet up regularly for playdates and outings, and part of my job as organizer is to plan these events. Today I attempted something new for our playgroup: an art project! Now that Alton is two, I felt more ready to attempt more purposeful art projects with a group of kids, knowing that he'd be able to hold his own and the presence of other moms would ensure that all the toddlers got the help they needed. So with the biggest card-crazy holiday approaching, I scheduled a morning session of craft time for the kids to make Valentine's day cards, and even added a second morning of fun to the calendar so that all the kids in our group got a turn. Today was our first event and we had so much fun!
I strode purposefully around the house this morning getting everything ready. For the last few weeks I have been squirreling away bounty from Target runs: heart-shaped stickers and glitter glue from the dollar bin, Crayola nontoxic kids' paints, and even a red ink pad to stamp a rosy "To / From" on each card. I cut cheap sponges into heart shapes for paint imprinting, and used the same stencil to slice up red, pink, and purple construction paper. A forage into my crafting trunk yielded big sheets of white cardstock, which Andy helped me to cut down into manageable greeting-card sizes. I assembled everything on the kitchen counters this morning and dressed Alton and myself in old clothes (just in case that "washable" paint proved indelible for our washer and dryer). Paint was poured into paper bowls; cellophane was torn off of sticker packages and glitter glue pens.
After this, my next step was to bring Alton's kid-sized worktable into our kitchen. This table (actually a 40-inch round drop-leaf table that used to be the main piece in our dining set until Andy cut the legs down) lives in our front room and supports Alton's sizeable collection of wooden puzzles, as well as his crayons. The table was conveniently already covered by a sturdy clear vinyl tablecloth (for any coloring mishaps), which I taped down securely for our craft time.

Alton was very excited that furniture was being moved around, so he decided to "help" me by trotting excitedly back into the front room to procure a small stool that normally resides next to the table, a book about cars from the library, and the omnipresent Pooh Bears.
Phew! Now craft time can commence!

Not quite. Just before the arrival of the other three children who would share our card-making fun, I put all of our supplies out on the table (removing Pooh Bear from the line of fire) and very narrowly kept Alton from prematurely dipping his fingers into a bowl of paint.


One of the other moms is a graphic designer and majored in art, and mentioned that when executing arts 'n crafts with this age group one should plan on 10 minutes of frenzied, intense and messy work, after which time the kids either lose interest or get overwhelmed by something (paint on their hands, paper is too soggy to work with anymore, etc.). We found this to be VERY true, although I noted with surprise that serious little Alton took much more time over his projects and continued to stamp and dab at his paper and inspect the tip of his glitter glue pen long after the other kids were all cleaned up. Like all things, it appears that he prefers to take his time over his art projects and make sure that he's doing a thorough job of completing them before moving on to something else.


At any rate, he was eventually coaxed into ending his tenure with the art supplies and allowed me to clean him off so that he could go play with toys in the living room with his friends. We left all the cards on the countertop to dry and I snapped a photo (Alton made two cards) so that you can admire the little guy's creative endeavors! Next round of cards: next Wednesday, with two more kids for a total of six. Should be fun!