My Funny Valentine Project

I love making Valentine's with the boys.  This sweet but semi-superfluous, semi-contrived holiday falls at a time when we've recovered from Christmas craftiness, and I need a project to focus on while we are mid-winter housebound.  In the past we've made fortune cookies out of felt with love notes inside, made flowers from cupcake papers, and made collages from magazine cutouts.  This year I was more excited than the boys about our project.  They did enjoy it, but I loved it.  Partly because it was an extremely green project, and I could feel so super good about it all.  Partly it was super practical, and partly it was goopy fun.  Hopefully I'm not being too smug about getting two of the three "R's".  We made paper and sprinkled it with wildflower seeds so that the paper could be planted--recycle AND reuse!!  Or is it double reused...or double recycled...hmmm.

I  went through piles of remnant construction paper and old abandoned art projects, collecting all of the scraps of paper I could.   It was fun looking at old cutout colored paper in relief and partially finished drawings from the kids, knowing that art and energy would go into these Valentines.  I got to reflect on previous artistic obsessions, such as the letter X.  I divided the paper into 4 piles of color groups--pink/red/purple, blue/green, brown/yellow/orange, and black.  I found 3 buckets and a small trashcan, and tore the paper into one inch-ish size pieces.  The boys helped some with this--since I decided to go big and do four batches (can I do anything little?).  If the project had been smaller they would likely have been able to tear plenty.  I added white paper (all recycled) into all of the buckets and then covered the paper with warm water and let it soak for a couple of days...mabye four?

I started the project thinking I could finish it the next day but that didn't work...it really only needed to soak for 24 hours.  But, I had work and various other interferences and I began to imagine all kinds of disgusting microbes festering in the water.  That didn't happen--well at least not to a significant and smelly point.  Probably partly because I put the buckets in our storage room that's nearly as cold as a fridge.  So I worried for nothing.

Anyhow, the next step was putting the paper with LOTS of water into the blender and making the glop.  This was the kids' favorite part, except for the baby, who hated the loud noise the blender makes on 'high.'  I collected window screens not being used in the middle of winter and placed them over the bathtub.  I got some plastic wrap and a half cup measure and went for it.  I had to experiment a bit with how to shape the paper.  I was trying to make hearts, which I more or less did, but that was a little tricky for the kids to achieve.  Their paper was a bit more free form and amorphous...and sort of thick, but pretty.  I achieved the heart by making a "V" with the glop, touching it up with my fingers to make it round and pointy, sprinkled on the seeds, then put plastic wrap over the top and pressed to shape and wring out excess water.   The tub turned into a rainbow.  The black and white paper turned a pretty purple.  The pinks and reds stayed true.  The brown palette glop made a lovely au natural peachy-tan.  The green and blue turned a muted minty color.

We then had several screens full of glop that dried overnight--super quick here in the dessert during wood stove season.  The paper peeled right off of the screens once dry, and had that lovely organic-looking soft edge.  Then I made up a little poem to explain what the paper was for:

Plant Me!

When Valentine's gone

And winter is done

Plant me in the ground

Give me water and sun

Soon flowers will show

And my friends will know

No matter the season

Love will always grow!

Cheesy enough?  Cute anyhow.  I attached these little poems to the hearts with yarn and had the kids write the "To" and "From" parts.  We had so much glop that I made some extra squared and rectangular papers and used them as background mattes, printing out some photos and mounting them on the paper for family Valentine's Day gifts.

I'm looking forward to planting some of these when Spring arrives.  With over a foot of snow on the ground and more falling from the sky as I type, it seems so, so far away from now.  At least we can dream about it.