Monday Makery - love strings

Valentine's Day is coming and as I'm the queen of leaving things til the last minute I wanted to plan a day after which we fall asleep with our hearts full. So this week I'm starting to pull together all my creative ideas to  make a day extraordinarily love-ly. 

Saint Valentine's Day traditionally clelebrates romantic love but I think its a great excuse to remind all of those we love how we feel. My Husband is away for the week of Valentines, escaping all the potential pitfalls of choosing that oh so perfect gift, that token that says 'I love you' more than the words, the gestures we share all the other 364 days of the year. I have left plenty of hints, with magazine pages left open on the coffee table and commenting on how beautiful 'this' and 'that' is.

So, it'll be me and my girls and my mama too. With Valentine's Day falling on a monday we're going to celebrate over the weekend with a day full of suprises, treats and a house decorated with symbols of love. Look out for next weeks 'Monday Makery' to see more of our Valentines creations. In the meantime why not try these hanging heart strings. They're easy to make and its a great way for children to start to think about the meaning behind that little-big word 'love'.

You'll need:

• coloured card
• heart templates or heart cookie cutters in various sizes
• scissors
• sticky tape
• wool or string

How to :

1. Measuring the width of paper you will need for your heart template fold the card back and forth like a concertina. This will save a lot drawing and cutting.
2. Draw around your cookie cutter or template to create a guidline for cutting. Younger children may find it easier to draw around the inside of the cutter rather than the outside.
3. Cut along the outline of the heart. If you have any childrens' craft scissors these would be a great way to give the hearts a pretty edge.
4. Lay your hearts across the table, leaving equal space between each shape, and place a long strand of wool over the top.
5. Stick the wool using sticky tape. If you'd like to, you can fold the sticky tape back on itself to make it 'double-sided' and stick another heart on top to make them look a little neater though this is a little fiddly for little hands.
6. Continue adding your decorations along the wool until your garland is the desired length. Then cut the length and hang. The strings below were made to hang vertically but if you'd prefer to hang horizontal garlands simply stick the hearts left to right rather than top to bottom.

You can personalise your garlands with other simple images. Make templates of your family, pets and those you hold dear. Perhaps write messages on each heart....'love is.....' , 'I love your.....' .

Whilst chosing the colour of the card I asked Sessi (Sophia) what colour came to mind when she thought about how much she loves Oona. "White" she said. So, Oona was white, Daddy was blue and orange and I was yellow. 

Each of us had a different coloured garland with different messages for the all those things we love about them.

Our garlands look so beautiful hanging there as a reminder of  those we love and feel most strongly for and I think there'll be there for a long time. And perhaps they should. It shouldn't be only Valentine's Day that we make such efforts to tell those we love just how much we really truly deeply do. However, forget about it and you'll not be forgiven!

Our garlands are now extending as Sessi has been thinking about all the people she loves. It'll be interesting to see what colours those people will be.