Friday, February 14, 2014

Handmade Valentine's Day Favor for Preschool Kids, Caterpillar Valentine's Day Craft Tutorial



" You Make My Heart Wiggle"
 
I made these adorable Caterpillar Pencil Favors  yesterday for my son's preschool classmates.  They will be celebrating Valentine's Day today in their class and exchanging little treasures with each other. He loves Eric Carle's Book - The Very Hungry Caterpillar so I decided to make this Caterpillar. I also added Finger LED lights as pencil toppers though that is totally optional.  The earlier post with butterflies is similar but my son was more excited about this one.

Here are supplies I used for this making the Caterpillar :

- Green , Red and White card stock

Martha Stewart Scoring Board ( Its not necessary. You can do simple accordion fold but since I had to make multiples (25) it came in real handy.

- 3/8 inch circle punch I used one from Recollections. You can use file or hand hole punch but I found the hole little small to insert pencils easily. If you find a  hand hole punch like this one ( 5/16 inch) it might work or you may have to punch twice to make the hole little bigger.

- Martha Stewart Heart Confetti Punch  I used it for eyes and mouth. You can simply draw them using markers if you do not have this or similar punch.

- Paper Trimmer

- Red and Black markers


- Glue

- Scissors



Steps for making the Caterpillar for pencil favor : 

- Put the green cardstock on the scoring board and score it at one inch intervals as shown in the picture. ( I scored along the longer side of 8.5 x 11 inches card stock). You can totally do accordion fold by hand if you are not making  a lot of these. I had to make 25 nos. and hence it was quicker to use scoring board.


- Cut 1inch x 8 inch strips from the scored card-stock ( cut perpendicular to the scored line not along the score)



 - Punch red and white mini hearts for eyes and heart and glue them to make the face. Use black marker to make the eyeballs.



- Round one end of the strip for the caterpillar face.

- Using the hole punch , punch out circles from the strip for inserting pencil.



- For the antennae of caterpillar use the punched out circles from above and glue them to 1 inch x 1/8inch strips from green cardstock. Color the center of the circles red. Fold the antennae at bottom ( around 1/8 inch) and glue as shown in the picture.


- ( Optional ) Write " You make my heart wiggle "  and from ( child's name) on the top and bottom edge, Older kids can write themselves or you can print and glue thin  strips instead of writing by hand.

- Add the pencil to the wiggly Caterpillar.

Here is another picture of Caterpillar Pencil Favors for Valentine's Day. As I mentioned above I added LED mini lights to the back of the pencil for added interest but its totally optional.



Happy Valentine's Day to all of you and your loved ones!




Monday, February 10, 2014

Handmade Valentine's Day Favors for Preschool Kids


One of my friends wanted to make handmade Valentine’s Day favors for her daughter's preschool classmates and asked me for ideas.  It had to be something her daughter could make with her.  I had seen many decorated pencil favors on Pinterest and had been meaning to try one of my own. Here is a picture of the adorable  butterfly pencil favors we (me , my friend and her sweet soon to be 5 year old daughter) made.


List of Supplies used:

 - Scalloped Circle punch (3.5 inches)
-  Small Hearts Punch
- Red, white and yellow card-stock
- Scissors
- Glue
- Double Sided Tape
- Pencils



Steps for making the project:
 - Punch red scalloped circles (depending on how many favors you plan to make) from the card stock using the scalloped circle punch.

-  Punch lots of red hearts using heart punch. You need four for each favor.

-  Cut out 1.5" x 0.5 " strips from yellow card stock.

-  Fold 3" x 11" white card-stock in half and draw butterfly wings as shown in the picture below. I cut one butterfly first and used it as a template to draw others for uniformity. Cut out the required numbers of butterflies.

-  Attach the butterfly cut out to the scalloped circle using double sided tape.

-  Now take the pencil and place it at the center of the butterfly. Attach the yellow strip to the butterflies over the pencil using double sided tape.



- Glue the hearts to the four corners of the yellow strip. And your adorable butterfly pencil favors are ready. Here is another picture of  bunch of  butterfly pencil favors we made.


You can easily add a lollipop, pen, pack of mints etc.  to customize this for favor of your choice. As an added touch my friend’s daughter wrote her name on a smaller scalloped circle with handmade from heart stamped on it and we attached it to the back of the butterfly favors.  I forgot to take pictures of that :( .


Kids can do most of the steps in this craft project with little help. Just use blunt scissors and help them with cutting the double sided tape.

I loved how these turned out and may end up making something similar for my son’s preschool classmates too. Let us know what you think about this project. We love to hear from our readers.

Happy Valentine’s Day!