Valentine's Day heart banner

In our house we have been in Valentine's Day mode for over two months now, ever since we watched an episode of Caillou in which he makes Valentines for his friends.  Now that it's actually February, I feel like we can finally celebrate the holiday within a more societally-appropriate time frame.

So last night we pulled out the watercolors and printer paper and made a little Valentine's Day heart banner to hang above one of our windows.  It's a very simple project and fun to do with kids.

Draw a few hearts on the paper and then color or decorate them however you want. (Tip: it's easier for kids to cut the heart shapes out after decorating them rather than trying to color within the lines of a pre-cut shape, so paint first, cut second.)

We used watercolors, but you could easily use markers or crayons, stickers, or glitter to decorate your hearts.  I saw at Hancock's that all the Valentine's Day merchandise is 50% off right now, and they had some plain red foam hearts that would be great for this project too.

After cutting the heart shapes out, punch a couple holes in the top of each heart and thread them together with ribbon.  It may help to lay them out on a table first to determine the order before you start threading.

We chose to hang out little banner above a window in our breakfast room, but I think one of these would be really cute hung on top of a mirror too.  If you're really ambitious, you could make a banner that goes all the way around the room.

I like that it's not perfect; my son helped me draw the hearts, paint them, and cut them out, and I really like that handcrafted look.  

So there you go!  A really easy craft for this weekend!