A Beary Hug and A Friendly roar

CJ had her second valentine exchange with her classmates this year. Last year we bought flimsy Punch-out Backyardigan valentines from Walmart. This year I was determined to do Homemade Swap cards. For Valentine's Day, we picked up My Heart Is Like a Zoo book from the library. Little Family Fun had a blog post about this book at her Blog. When I saw her post the thought of Valentine swap cards came into my mind and I put a hold on the book. We made Bear hug and Friendly roar valentine cards. Instead of just being a swap card,I wanted the card to hold the valentine Candy and the Rainbow pencil. So I added a heart pouch, a handle and converted them into a small handy goodies Bag.

Click to look inside the Book!

I should have posted these cards before Valentine's Day but things didn't go my way and I was unable to post it. But anyways these cards/bags could be a super Birthday party favor, may serve as a Thank-you card. They can also be made for Grandparents, Parents Birthday, Mother's day/ Father's day.

We made two set of cards. One set for our Friends circle kids and the other set for CJ school valentine exchange. In her school, CJ belongs to Bear class and She wanted to make Bear Valentines for her class. So we made Pink Bears for girls and Blue Bears for Boys

For our Friends circle kids, we made lions for Boys and Bears for Girls.

Materials Used:

Construction Paper
Glue
Heart Shape Cookie cutter or Heart patterns
Child safe Scissors
Jute string or Yarn
Lollipops
Googly eyes(Big one for Bears, Small one for lions)
Recycled rectangle envelopes

LION:

Getting Started - Just an Overview to create lot of hearts at a time:

We made 4 lions and each lion is made of 6 hearts. So we had lots of heart to cut. To speed up the process, we took a construction paper, folded it up in accordion style. Using cookie cutter we marked the half heart outline as shown in the picture below. Then we cut out about 7 to 8 hearts at a time

For smaller hearts

We tried to use every piece of construction paper

Hearts and hearts! What color do you want?

Recently we bought a Cookie cutter set from Amazon and it came handy for this project. This cookie cutters and stencils are great. They are sturdy and heavy plastic so no worry about rusting. It works good to cut bread too. Because of the Jumbo size it serves multipurpose in kitchen and Crafts! I used the Heart stencil for smaller hearts and cookie cutter for bigger hearts.

Each lion is made of 6 hearts. The Mane and the body is made of same size hearts. For the Face, Cut a heart smaller then the Mane. For the Chin and the Nose cut hearts smaller then the Face. I used Orange Color construction paper for the Mane and the front legs, yellow color for the Chin, Face and Back legs, Red for the Nose.

Head

Mane

Chin

Glue the heart to the mane as shown below

Face

Glue the heart as shown below

Nose

Glue the Heart as shown below

Body

Glue the hearts as shown below to get the Body shape

Glue the head to the Body of the Lion and make slits in the body hearts to get the four legs. Give the Lion a Haircut as shown below

Glue a Jute string as tail of the lion and Googly eyes to the Face of the lion.

I found this Idea of making beautiful heart pouches from the Zakka's life blog. One of my favorite recycling and green projects blog.

All you need is an recycled envelope!

Draw a heart shape in one corner of the envelope.

Cut along the outline to get a heart shape as shown below

The construction paper lion looked very flimsy so I glued the lion to a card stock and then glued the heart pouch to the backside of the head.

All set! Now you have a heart pouch to be filled with Candy/Lollipop or Special Notes/Wishes.

Ready for the Friendly Roar!

BEAR:

For each Bear, For the Body you need a big heart, For the Ears and the Face- two hearts of same size. For the Chin, a heart smaller then the face and For the Nose, a heart smaller then the Chin. I used dark Pink/Dark Blue construction paper for the Body and the ears, For the Face-Light pink/Light blue color, For the Chin- White, For the Nose - Tan color.

From lesson learned in making the lion, For the sturdy feel I glued the Hearts to Construction paper. This method was much easier and I was able to make 3 bears at a stretch.

I made the Bear valentines, the night before valentine's Day and I didn't picture the steps. So I played around Picnik software to create the below images.

Body

Glue the Big Heart on to the Construction sheet. I glued 3 hearts with equivalent spacing. So that I can create 3 bears at a time.

Ears

Glue the heart as shown below to make the ears of the bear

Face

Glue the heart as shown below to make the face of the bear

Chin

Glue the heart smaller then the face as shown below to make the chin of the bear

Nose
Glue the heart smaller then the chin as shown below to make the Nose of the bear

Eyes

Glue the Googly eyes and the Bear is ready.

Cut the Bear Outlines from the Construction paper. Glue on the recycled envelope heart pouches to the backside of the head. Add-on yarn or Jute String to create a handle.