Eco-friendly Valentine's Day Crafts for Kids

I’ve never been a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, but something about having children makes all the holidays and occasions that much more special and exciting. Am I right? Valentine’s Day is no exception. Growing up, my mom always made a big deal of celebrating every occasion, whether it was my birthday or Easter or Valentine’s Day. To my husband’s dismay, I think I’ve inherited this desire to celebrate everything big-time. This year, my son K-Bear and I have already started crafting, and I love it! To keep things eco-friendly, we’re trying to just use items we already have, if possible. Here are a couple of the eco-friendly valentine’s day crafts for kids we’ve already made.

Tissue Paper Heart Wreaths

I discovered this Valentine’s tissue heart wreath over at Happy Hooligans and K-Bear had so much fun making it. We just used tissue paper we already had, mainly recycled from Christmas gifts (I’m one of those people that keeps tissue paper going for as long as possible!)

I cut a heart-shaped wreath out of regular white art paper we had, then taped (you could glue) it to a piece of cardboard I cut out to match. Sometimes saving old boxes comes in handy after all. Then we cut up some pieces of tissue paper, I helped K-Bear put glue on the wreath, and he went to town carefully scrunching up and sticking on the paper. He really concentrated on this one, making sure to not miss any spots. I love these tissue paper heart wreaths and he was so excited to hang them up.

Heart Sponges and Celery Heart Stamps

For our next craft, I found a couple of kitchen sponges we had lying around and we used an exacto-blade to cut them into heart shapes. I found this fun idea on Learn.Create.Love. Then I cut up some celery so the end of the pieces resembled heart shapes. I’ve seen this done many times, with a heart or rose shape, and it works really well. Yay for using fruit as art materials! We poured some paint out and K-Bear had so much fun stamping with the sponges and celery. He wanted to stamp on a plain piece of white paper but I also cut up some hearts that can be used to give away as cards.

Both of these crafts are really easy to make and can be done with materials you already have. I washed out the heart-shaped sponges and they can be re-used many times again. Happy crafting!