Valentine's Day Party with a Purpose: Sharing the Love

I happen to love Valentines Day.  I LOVE love and love the reminder to set time aside to show those we love the most. Of course, it's easy to show our children how much we love them, but are we teaching them how to love others?  There are two things that 3-5 year olds totally understand: 1) Superheros and 2) wanting to feel loved. I'm a sucker for the children in children's hospitals and their parents, and it was easy to explain that there are children in hospitals that have real battles that they bravely fight every day, which makes them REAL Superheroes... and we want them to know they're not alone & they are loved.  We're so thankful to Henri's Bakery for hosting us and their ah-maz-ing treats.  Keep scrolling to find out what they were and see all the love-ly details.

Don't tell anyone... I pulled this off in 4 days... largely in part due to Paperless Post, which is my go-to for beautifully designed, customizable online invitations.  Pretty sure this step (which is pretty crucial - there's no party without guests) took a total of 10 minutes.

To be sure everyone was in the spirit, we started out with fun place settings for each child and of course just a little sugar. 

The good thing about children is that sometimes the simplest things are the best things, so I didn't overthink it with the drinks - the juice boxes were huge crowd pleasers.

Yes, those are candy bracelets holding the napkins!

These shortbread cookies were the perfect treat for the occasion because they're not messy like traditionally having cupcakes & I knew we didn't need sticky fingers for our craft we were about to make.  Did I mention how good they were?! We literally had to go buy an extra dozen.

The only thing I pre-made were the backs of the badges, which you can just print on cardstock, cut out with a 3.5" circle punch, and glue a pin to the top. 

Oh, and I pre-cut the strips of ribbon as well, easy-peasy.

Cupcake liners in order from large to small to keep it easy for the little ones to just go down the line and choose one color at a time.

We have the exclusive download for this version of the Love Never Fails print here!

This is the original print and was given to all the moms who took the time to bring their children to our little get together.  à la Sparke has the free download, along with a couple Valentine cards too!

You might wonder how it went when I told these 10 children (a few not pictured) what we were about to make was for other little boys and girls and not them, that we would have some push back... not a single one. All we heard were lots of questions about these little heroes & how they hoped the children would love what they made for them.

* "Love Never Fails print design: LovedBabyDesigns

St. Patty's Day Lucky Clover Craft

I'm finally getting around to sharing another craft project with you.  I haven't posted one since last Easter!

First, we started the day with a super complicated 3-element St. Patty's Day breakfast:

1. Green Banana Bread Muffins Should I trust you with sharing this recipe??
2. Green Scrambled Eggs - It's just food coloring people!
3. Bowl of Lucky Charms

You may think the green eggs look unappetizing, but Sam-I-Am actually thinks they're quite delectable and so does the Kraze!  

Here's what you'll need for your Shamrocks:

• Printer & Paper to cut out your silhouette
• Pencil & Scissors to trace & cut out your image
• Cardstock (holds the weight of the glue & paper better)
• Green napkins (what I had lying around the house) or tissue paper
• Mod Podge or any glue you'd like (for the crumpled version)

I cut my napkins into 1 inch squares (approx. - doesn't have to be exact) and crumpled them up. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

Truth time: I did help fill in some gaps (again, they're 2... and I'm a bit of a perfectionist (AND I needed a completed project for the pictures right?!).  Does this make me a bad mom?  
Zoe did ask me to do her stem for her - which was before she insisted on UN-crumpling the paper and wanted it to lay flat.  She's actually much smarter than I am, because her version was much more age-appropriate than mine - her version took half the time of my crumpled version!

*Zoe's paper-mache version:

• After letting Zo put the paper all over, I turned it over & cut off the edges, so it would look like a shamrock again.
  
  
  
  
• I Mod Podged over the napkins as well & I'm super happy with the way hers turned out too.

At the end of the day, they are so proud of themselves.  Every time they look at their shamrocks, they say, "We made a craft!!" 

I especially love these because they are yet another example of experiencing the two shades of the Kraze (as mentioned in my First Blog Post Ever)!