Toddler friendly Valentine's that were heart-ly any work, and a whole lot of fun

Every year since my son Jackson was born he has sent out Valentine's to family and friends. This year he is 2 1/2 around V day so he is old enough to do something more hands on. I came across this brilliant idea that I knew would be perfect for Valentines, from Elizabeth Joan Designs. She made a heart stamp out of an empty toilet paper tube! So simple, so cheap (free!) and so genius! Her kids looked like they had an absolute blast!

It took all of 30 seconds to make these easy (but genius) stamps. I then gathered some white card stock, markers and envelopes from my craft stash. I wanted to make heart shaped Valentines so I reused my idea from last year, tracing a wood heart decoration from my Valentine mantle.

It worked perfectly to fit in a 5x7 envelope. Thanks again wood hearts!

I then wrote out a Valentine message from Jackson and let him create a masterpiece.

After he was done drawing we moved onto making paint. I really wanted to make non toxic, toddler friendly paint and I found the perfect recipe on Tinkerlab. Not only did this site have an easy paint recipe but it has tons of ideas for toddler art projects, science projects and more! This paint was so easy to make Jackson did most of the work! 

I measured the ingredients: flour, salt and water, and he dumped them in the bowl. He even stirred the paint mixture. I split the paint between two bowls and added food coloring and we were good to go.

The paint worked out perfectly. It was thick enough to not make a mess. I was so prepared for a mess, see the bib. The bib was the ONLY thing that got messy because it flipped onto the paper and smeared a heart. I even pushed Jackson's sleeves up several times because he wouldn't keep them down and still NO paint on his clothes!

The paint was also thick enough so that I really didn't have to help at all with the stamping. Jackson pretty much did all the work and we both had a great time!

I swear he would have done 5 more pages if I let him.

He enjoyed himself so much that he kept asking to "paint" again, so the next day he painted with Daddy. I had put the paint in the refrigerator and it still worked just as good the next day with a little stir. This time he put hearts on his Valentine's envelopes.

Not too shabby for using products I had laying around the house.

The paint dried in less than 24 hours and it was rock hard and "puffy". I will definitely be using this paint recipe again!

Here is my favorite one that now sits on our Valentine mantle.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

XOXO-

Sherri