Paint and decorate cardboard hearts in this open-ended process art activity for Valentine’s Day. These DIY Valentines for kids are so simple and easy to create!
Hi! My name is Rachel Withers & I’m the editorial coordinator here at The Artful Parent. I’m so excited to share these easy process art valentines that my son & I made together.
We recently moved to a new home and it felt good to start creating together again in our new space. Since we just moved, we are currently overflowing with cardboard! Fortunately, there are so many creative ideas how to reuse it for art!
MY LATEST VIDEOSI’ve loved making valentines since I was in elementary school so this was a fun new tradition to start with my son.
I recently bought some Mala squeeze paint from IKEA after reading good things about it. We chose the fluorescent paint and it provided bright, beautiful coverage on the cardboard. If you’ve never tried this paint, I think you’ll like it! But certainly any acrylic or tempera paint will work!
Cardboard Hearts – DIY Valentines for Kids
MATERIALS
- cardboard
- scissors
- Mala paint (or other tempera or acrylic paint)
- glue
- pom poms
- glitter
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Paint cardboard
This was a two day project for us. The first day my son happily squeezed (a lot of) Mala paint onto pieces of cardboard.
Because there was so much paint, we put some of the pieces together with the blotto (or smush painting) technique– (pat pat pat–WOW!).
My son (who is almost 3) is wild about blotto prints ever since doing a project at our toddler art group last year. This was a fun way to get beautiful swirls and blending of colors.
2. Cut heart shapes
After letting our cardboard dry, we came back to this project a few days later. I cut the cardboard into heart shapes and we talked about giving these valentines to our friends & family.
3. Decorate the valentines!
This is the fun part! Use whatever you have lying around the house–pom poms, glitter, ribbons, sequins, googly eyes, feathers–any of these will work great to add to the valentines.
Then grab a bottle of glue and let your little (or big) kid squeeze away.
We ended up with quite a lot of glue sitting on the cardboard (similar to our paint situation). All the more opportunity for decorating.
We had some pom poms I picked up from Target’s Valentine’s Day section that I was waiting to use. That and some glitter added a nice final touch to the cardboard hearts.
4. Give homemade valentines
Homemade valentines take a little extra time but are so worth it and the process is so fun for kids (& adults)! If you’re like me with small kids, you just have to start extra early!
I hope you enjoy trying your own variation of these easy DIY valentines for kids.
About the Author
Rachel is the Editorial Coordinator at The Artful Parent (you can read more about Rachel and the Artful Parent Team here). She is also a family portrait photographer at Rachel Withers Photography, with a passion for working with kids (follow Rachel on Instagram). And if that’s not enough, she teaches photography and art to elementary students! There’s nothing quite like the excitement of making art side-by-side with students as they explore and create.
Rachel lives in Portland, Maine, and loves going on adventures with her family. As a mother of two young kids, she is excited to explore how nature, art, and play combine in a child’s learning and development. Creating art with her son William and hosting a toddler art group are current highlights.
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