Happy Valentine’s Day

Yes, it’s that time of the year when I pull out the little match boxes and origami paper that I don’t seem to ever use for its intended purpose.  For me, Valentine’s Day is all about the crafts.  And the color red. I hesitated to make the same kind of valentines this year, but I had 30 matchboxes leftover from the last go around and a fresh crop of kindergarteners, so why not?  Esmé is reading and writing this year and loved labeling all the boxes.

For my older daughter, we needed to do something a little different.  But what? I scoured the blogosphere, but in the end found these little bags that she was happy to decorate (again, the theme being unused origami paper):

The original plan was to make chocolates to fill the bags.  I did my research, purchased some heart-shaped molds and the ingredients.  How hard could it be? Probably not that hard, but mid-weekend, amidst the cutting, pasting, coloring, birthday parties and music festival, my husband gently told me that making little heart-shaped chocolates was maybe just a little insane.  I totally disagreed, but gradually came around to his point of view on Sunday evening, when we were still slogging through all the boxes and bags.  By that time, it was too late to even make cookies, so I ran to the store and came back with Hershey kisses.

I still want to try my hand at making chocolates, but perhaps a pack of 3rd graders wouldn’t be the most appreciative audience for that sort of endeavor, anyway.