Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Handmade With Love

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I begin to think about what kind of Valentines 5 ½ year old Griffin will make this year. An avid crafter myself, he has grown up surrounded by every type of craft supply imaginable. As a result I seem to have raised a boy who loves to make things. He has never given store bought Valentines in his life.

When Griffin was 2, I bought blank cards and envelopes and two packages of foam stickers, one of message hearts and one of monsters. Griffin has always loved making “sticker artwork” and had a great time filling each card (and envelope) with stickers leaving just enough room for me to write “Happy Valentine’s Day! From Griffin”. One girl at the MOMS Club Valentine Party tried to pull off the monsters. She did not want monsters on her card, but they seemed perfect coming from a 2 year old boy.

When he was 3 we bought a couple packages of doilies and I printed small cards with “Happy Valentine’s Day” which he glued onto blank cards and of course more stickers. At 4, Griffin could not wait for me to help him make his Valentines and began cutting the shapes of the first letter of some of his friend’s names out of plain lined paper. I helped him finish by tracing letters for the rest of his classmates onto cards which he cut out, decorated with stickers, and wrote their names on. This was quite a feat considering he was still mastering writing his own name.

This year Griffin has two Kindergarten classes to make cards for. Over the years his “artwork” has developed from a mishmash of stickers all piled on top of each other into detailed scenes of oceans and beaches. So I am excited to see what we come up with. I suppose some day he will decide he wants to buy preprinted valentines with images of his favorite movie. But for now I am going to enjoy getting crafty with my kid. How about you?

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