3 Easy Valentine's Day Crafts for Kids | Nevada Moms (2024)

Last updated:February 26, 2024

Love is in the air. Hearts are all aflutter. Everyone seems to finally be over the winter-holiday-hump and are in a happy, loving mood again. Here are some easy Valentine’s Day crafts for kids that you can enjoy.

Step up your Valentine’s game this year, and create some new traditions! Below are some fun, easy, ways to surprise your littles throughout Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day Crafts for Kids

Crafts are fun for everyone and allow you to celebrate Valentine’s Day longer than one day. These crafts will get everyone excited!

My goal is to provide fun, affordable, craft ideas with supplies available at Dollar Stores around Northern Nevada.

Craft #1: Appreciation Hearts & Crafts

Let your family know what you love about them, or why they are so amazing. Starting February 1st (or TODAY) tape “Appreciation Hearts” on your family’s doors.

Take heart-shaped doilies (available at Dollar Stores) or cut hearts out of paper. Each day, share positive words of affirmation, what makes your child shine, etc.

Some Ideas:

• You are smart.
• You have a kind heart.
• I love that you ______________.
• You make me ______________.

By the time Valentine’s Day arrives there will be 14 empowering hearts on your child’s door. This Valentine’s Day craft for kids is great to do WITH them for a loved one – grandparent, parent, or friend!

Craft #2: Valentine’s Day Suncatcher

All supplies needed for this Valentine’s Day Suncatcher are available from any dollar store (I am partial to Dollar Trees).

This craft will make more than one Heart Suncatcher. Repeat the steps below to make multiple hearts.

*NOTE: Don’t get discouraged if you can’t find what you’re looking for right away. I can guarantee another Dollar Store will have the items!

Supplies Needed:

• Clear Contact Paper
• Valentine’s Shapes
• Foam conversation hearts
• Glitter hearts
• Heart confetti
• Glitter/Sparkles/Confetti/Puff Balls
• Tissue Paper
• Construction Paper/Poster Board
• Craft Glue
• Scissors
• For Displaying: Tape/Command Strips/Ribbon

Ideal Age Group For This Craft: Ages 1-7

While fun for all, this is a great activity for kids 7 and under. Children will work on hand-eye coordination as well as motor skills.

If you are having your littlest of littles do this project, be prepared to assemble suncatchers once decorated.

How to Make Your Suncatcher

1. PREPARE – Open all packages and put Valentine’s Shapes, Glitter, and Decorations in little dishes for grabbing ease. I found my daughter’s food tray was perfect for this.
2. RIP-IT GOOD – Have your littles help you rip up the tissue paper. Make a small pile.
3. MAKE CONTACT – Unroll a large piece of contact paper and remove backing. Place on the work surface, sticky-side up.
4. MAKING MAGIC – This is the fun part. Let your child go to town! Allow them to sprinkle and stick all of the decorations, tissue paper, shapes, and glitter onto the contact paper. It’s ok if it’s not perfectly distributed.
5. COVER YOUR CREATION – Cut another piece of contact paper, slighter larger than the original piece. Remove backing. CAREFULLY cover the decorated contact paper with the fresh piece, trapping all of the decorations inside.
6. SMOOTH IT – Press out all of the extra air-bubbles and make sure the contact paper makes as much contact as it can with each side.
7. WINDOW TO YOUR HEART – You will now create the border for the sun-catcher.
   • Using either construction paper or poster board, cut out 2 matching-hearts
   • Cut out the center of each of the hearts. This can be done by creating another heart, or you can make any shaped “window”.
   • Ensure that both sides of the heart are cut the same and match when placed together.
8. PUTTING IT TOGETHER – Cut the contact paper to match the inner-hole of the heart you cut out. It’s ok if the contact paper is slightly bigger than the heart.
9. GLUE IT – Cover each side of paper hearts with craft glue. Place cut contact paper on top of one of the paper hearts. Place other paper hearts on top of the contact paper. NOTE: You are sandwiching the contact paper in between the construction paper.
10. DRY TIME – Place the heart to dry. I recommend putting a heavy book on top to prevent the paper from curling. Allow plenty of time to dry.
11. FINAL TOUCHES – Once dry, trim access contact paper, leaving heart border with decorated contact paper inside.
12. DISPLAY – Hang finished hearts in your window. You can punch a hole in the paper and tie-up with a piece of ribbon. Or, you can tape the Hearts to window using: scotch tape, double-sided tape, or Command Strips

Craft #3: “You Give Me Butterflies” Valentine’s Day Classmate Gifts

These Butterfly fruit cups are the perfect gifts for your child’s classroom Valentine’s Day party! Everyone will be sure to love them!

Supplies:

• Fruit Cups
  NOTE: I used fruit cups with jello for the #CuteFactor (these are Valentine’s butterflies after-all, and I couldn’t resist the red jello for the bug’s bodies).
• The Dollar Stores also sell fruit cups sans jello and syrup for a healthier option.
• You Give Me Butterflies Template (provided by Northern Nevada Moms)
• Foam Heart Stickers in a variety of sizes
• These were available at every Dollar Tree in bags of 100 pieces
• Googly Eyes
• Butterfly Antennae
• These can be made out of anything, including extra pieces of foam, hearts, hearts cut in half, pipe-cleaners, etc.
• Craft Glue
• Glue Stick (optional)
• Scissors
• Colored pencils or crayons (optional)

Ideal Age Group For This Craft: Ages2-9

While younger kiddos can participate in this project, expect to do most of the work if you go this route. My daughter did a great job sticking the googly-eyes on, once I had put the glue in the appropriate spot.

Older kids will have no problem with the cutting and gluing portions of this craft.

How to Make Butterfly Valentine’s Day Crafts for Kids

Print out the FREE You Give Me Butterflies template here. Just enter your email and you’ll be directed to the templates for easy download.

1. PRINT – Print out the You Give Me Butterflies template.
   • We have included pre-colored templates, as well as black and white templates (for older kiddos that may want to color their friend’s butterflies).
   • If you chose to use the black and white template, now is the time to color.
2. CUT ‘EM OUT – Cut out the circle Valentines
3. TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN – Fill out the to/from portion on the circle Valentines. It is easier to do this now before glued to the fruit cups.
4. GLUE – Glue the circle Valentines to the fruit cup’s label.
   • I used craft glue for this step but a glue stick will also work
5. WING-IN’ IT – Create the wings for the butterflies. While you can do this in a variety of ways. I made this as easy as possible for myself by using Foam Heart Stickers.
   • Each wing takes 6 hearts (4 large, 2 small)
   • Cut 2 of the large hearts in half
   • Stick the half-heart to a full heart. There will be “sticky” that is exposed
   • Place the exposed “sticky” to the middle of the fruit cup (this has created ½ of the butterfly’s wings)
   • Repeat the same process on the other side of the fruit cup, to complete the wings.
   • Place small hearts on top of wings for color contrast
6. FACE TIME – On the front of the fruit cup (opposite from where you have placed the wings) stick on a heart to create the butterfly’s face.
7. EYES ON – On either side of the face, put two dots of craft glue to create the butterfly’s eyes
8. TOUCHY FEELERS – Prep your antennae and attach above butterfly’s face with craft glue. I used a combination of small hearts, as well as the foam antennae I found.
9. DRY TIME – Let these beautiful, unique butterflies dry overnight (at the very least).

There are so many amazing Valentine’s Day crafts for kids and we would love to see how you are celebrating! Share the LOVE-ly crafts you made and if you need food ideas, we’ve got you covered!

Tag Nevada Moms on Facebook and Instagram so we can see how you celebrated Valentine’s Day with your family and friends!

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