Valentine's Day Crafts for Toddlers

Valentine's Day is fast approaching. Most people are thinking about what they should get their spouse for this year's Valentine's Day. Don't forget about doing something special with your little toddler. Take a break and enjoy some time with your beloved toddler by helping them enjoy some of the very cute Valentine's Day crafts below.

PAPER HEART BUTTERFLY: One of the cutest toddler crafts that I have seen is the Paper Heart Butterfly. This is an adorable butterfly made solely out of paper hearts. You will need glue, scissors and construction paper. I like to use red and pink construction paper. You will need to draw two 6 inch high hearts, two 4 inch high hearts, three 2 inch high hearts and four 1 inch high hearts. I like to alternate colors. For example I will cut the 6 inch hearts out of red paper, the 4 inch hearts out of pink paper, the 2 inch hearts out of red paper and then cut out two red 1 inch hearts and two pink 1 inch hearts.

After all of the hearts are cut out it's time to create a butterfly. On one of the 2 inch hearts draw a cute and happy face for your butterfly. You can attach some red yarn or pipe cleaner to the top of the head to become the antenna. Once you are done with the face set it aside.

Now let's make the wings. Take one of the large 6 inch hearts and glue one of the 4 inch hearts inside of it and then glue one of the 2 inch hearts inside of the 4 inch heart. There, that wing is completed. Now repeat the same process to create the second butterfly wing.

Now we will make the body of the butterfly. You will now use the four 1 inch hearts. To create the body of the butterfly you will take these four hearts and glue them in a row while overlapping each one on the other. Making sure that you are gluing them upside down. Once you have these four glued in a row, the head of the butterfly will be glued rightside-up at the top of the row of body hearts. You will have the butterfly body completed now. The head will be at the top and the body will be coming down from the head with upside down hearts all in a row.

After the body is done you will now attach the wings. All you have to do is glue the wing hearts to each side of the body, gluing onto the back of the body. When you are finished you will have a beautiful butterfly heart for your toddler to enjoy. To make it even more entertaining you can glue a popsicle stick onto the back of the butterfly so that it will then become a butterfly puppet. Once completed you can let your toddler decorate the butterfly with glitter, markers, stampers or anything that you can think of.

HEART CATERPILLAR: To create a heart caterpillar you only need glue, scissors and construction paper. If you read the above craft about the paper heart butterfly then you are all set to create a heart caterpillar. For this one you just omit the butterfly wings and make the body and you will have a heart caterpillar. Just cut out eight 1 inch hearts in alternating colors and one 2 inch heart for the head. Draw a happy caterpillar face on the big heart and then glue all of the body hearts in alternating colors just like above. Glue the head to the top of the caterpillar body and you are set. You can add yarn or pipe cleaner antenna. If you want to glue this to a homemade card then you can moit adding the antenna and just draw them onto the card when you have the caterpillar glued onto the card.

VALENTINE PERSON: A Valentine's Day person is a fun craft for children of all ages. For this one you simply need glue, scissors and construction paper. You will need to cut out one large red heart, about 8 inches high and four 2 inch high hearts. The big heart will be the person's head and body and the four smaller hearts will be the persons hands and feet. You will then need 4 strips of pink construction paper. I usually just cut two 1 inch wide strips down the long side of a sheet of pink construction paper and two 1 inch wide strips down the short side of a piece of pink construction paper.

Next you will want to fold the four strips of pink paper accordian style. These strips will become the arms and legs of the valentine person. You will then glue these four strips into the positions that would be the arms and legs. Short ones are arms and long ones are legs. After you are finished gluing the arms and legs on you will glue one of the little hearts to the ends of each arm and leg. These will form the hands and feet.

Once your person is completed it's time to decorate. Let your child draw a face or glue on little pompoms for the nose and eyes or even glue on goggly eyes from your local craft store. They can draw, use glitter, paint or stamp designs onto their valentine person. If you want, you can add a popsicle stick to the person to turn them into a Valentine Person Puppet.

VALENTINE'S DAY MAILBOX: I'm sure that your children will receive many, many cute little Valentine's Day cards and goodies from their friends at school. So why not create a cute little homemade mailbox for your child to carry their goodies home from school in? For this Valentine's Day craft you will need scissors, glue, an empty shoe box, plain paper like butcher paper or kraft paper and anything you would want to use to decorate the mailbox; markers, crayons, buttons, fabric hearts, glitter, stickers, etc.

Now that you have everything gathered for your mailbox let's get started. First off, cut a slot into the center of the lid of the shoe box. This is where the "mail" will go into the mailbox. Next wrap the whole box and lid with the plain butcher or kraft paper. Make sure that you wrap the top seperately from the bottom so that mailbox will be able to open.

Now let your child have tons of fun decorating their box with anything that pleases them. They can draw, stamp, use stickers, paint....anything at all. I'm sure it will turn out to be one spiffy Valentine's Day Mailbox!

These are only a few good Valentine's Day crafts for your toddler and, actually, for children of all ages. I hope that you and your children will enjoy taking a moment and enjoying Valentine's Day in their own way....with crafts!