With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, you may be on the lookout for crafts and activities to keep little (and big) hands busy. These adorable DIY Valentine’s Day crafts are perfect for gift-giving or to keep all to yourselves. They’re fun, fast, affordable, and easy — just what you need after a hectic holiday season.
Why are DIY Valentine's Day crafts best?
An age-appropriate Valentine's Day craft for toddlers
One of the most important aspects of crafting with young kids is being mindful of age-appropriate attention spans. When considering Valentine’s Day crafts for toddlers, take into account how much active craft time you have to work with.
Transitioning from one activity to another can be challenging at this age, so couple craft time with an activity like this outdoor scavenger hunt to collect twigs for this twig heart frame. Set clear expectations from the start and explain that you’re going on a nature walk so you can come in, and create a fun Valentine’s Day craft while having a snack before naptime. This sets clear expectations, which you may need to repeat periodically throughout the activity.
Pencil flags: Classroom-friendly valentines
When you need to give classroom Valentine’s, you want something cute, quick, and inexpensive. These washi tape Valentine’s Day pencil flags are the perfect non-candy option for the classroom.
Paper flowers from household items
Educational STEAM projects using household items? Absolutely! Candy shop owner, mom, and artist Andrea Nelson has taken Instagram by storm with her fun kid- and parent-friendly crafts and painting activities. Her recent coffee filter paper flowers post has received over 16,000 likes. “This is the perfect little craft for your kids to make to give away for Valentine’s Day,” Nelson suggested in an Instagram post. “You just watercolor, that’s it!”
In her paper flowers video tutorial, Nelson demonstrates the craft as she talks you through the process so you can show your kids how to proceed. “Poke the pipe cleaner through the back of the stacked-up coffee filters, then you just kind of wad up one end to hold it in place,” Nelson explained. “You just fluff up the coffee filters so they look like a flower and bunch up the side with the leaves so you can wrap the pipe cleaner around to secure it. You can do one or a whole bouquet!”
Valentine's Day coloring pages and activities
If you’re running short on time, need a quick Valentine’s Day activity and you have access to a printer, these coloring pages, activities, and printable Valentine’s Day crafts will save the day!
- The Organized Mom blog suggests printing and coloring these animal-themed coloring pages to use as inexpensive Valentine’s Day banner decor. Just resize, color, and paste onto blank greeting cards or use them for jotting down scavenger hunt clues.
- Older kids will enjoy assembling this DIY pop-up Valentine’s Day card using a template from Skip to My Lou.
- “Mad Libs”-type word games are a great tool for learning parts of speech and these Valentine’s Day-themed ad libs from Happiness Is Homemade will have your kids learning and giggling all afternoon.
Edible Valentine's Day craft
Edible Valentine’s Day crafts will always be a hit, no matter your child’s age. Here are a few yummy treats you can make with your kids to enjoy together or to give to friends and family:
- Chocolate-covered pretzel rods dipped are easy, fun, and festive and make great gifts for your Valentines. They’re easily customizable so you could even make a batch with white chocolate dyed green to save for St. Patrick’s Day gift-giving.
- Bake up a few batches of brownies from a box, cut them into heart shapes with a cookie cutter, and decorate to make conversation heart brownies for your Valentine’s Day dessert table.
- Simple cupcakes with frosting get a major glow-up when you layer them in small mason jars and add a pretty ribbon. Because slicing off the rounded cupcake allow for a better fit, you and your kids can snack on the extras while decorating and assembling these darling mason jar cupcakes.
Heart-shaped corner bookmarks
You probably have everything you need on hand for your kids to make these adorable and easy heart-shaped corner bookmarks for classmates. They’ll just need a few markers, a hole punch, glue stick, pencil, paper, and googly eyes to create these unique bookmarks.
