Our Favorite Valentine's Day Craft!

I try to do a different craft with my son each day, along with a fun lesson to go with the craft.  To pay tribute to love on Valentine's Day, we did this fun little craft that is sure to be a hit with any child!!  It's a great way to let your child have a hands-on experience with a craft, with the end product being something that you can cherish for years to follow!

Yarn Hearts

Ingredients

• Colored yarn cut into about 1 ft pieces (we used red, pink and white yarn for Valentine's Day)
• Cornstarch
• Water
• parchment paper/wax paper/or baking sheet
• heart shaped cookie cutter

Directions

1. Make cornstarch glue by combining 1/4 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup water into a sauce pan.  Heat over medium heat until mixture thickens into a paste.
2. Let cornstarch glue cool until it's safe for your child to put their hands into it.
3. Place heart shaped cookie cutter onto parchment paper
4. Let your child dip pieces of colored yarn into the cornstarch glue until it is fully covered.
5. Run fingers over glue covered yarn to remove excess glue, and place into cookie cutter.  (placement of the yarn isn't really crucial...I've found that these hearts turn out cute no matter how the yarn is placed into the cutter)
6. Continue dipping the yarn into the glue until you have a filled the cookie cutter about half way.
7. Press yarn firmly into the cookie cutter and then remove the cutter, leaving a heart of yarn.
8. Continue making hearts until you run out of yarn or glue.
9. Let hearts stand overnight to dry.

Once dried, you can add ribbon to these to make an ornament or simply use them as Valentine's Day decorations as is.  They are a cute, inexpensive craft that children have a lot of fun making!! 

**On a side note, these aren't limited to just Valentine's Day.  You can use cookie cutters of various shapes and yarns of many colors to create lots of different yarn things for many different occasions.  We've done pumpkins for Halloween and some things for Christmas too (trees, stars, bells).