The kids' Valentine's cards

I've gotten really sneaky clever with cards lately.

I get the kids to make cards for their friends/ the grannies/ Daddy, etc and this serves three purposes:

1. crafting time 
2. there's purpose to the activitiy (birthday, Valentine's, etc)
3. I get to give the stuff away (this is the biggest thrill to be honest :)) so it doesn't clutter up my house

By the way, did I tell you how a lady in the lift was horrified at me when I said I toss all the stuff the children do? (except the very first thing - first handprints painting, etc.)

So for Valentine's this is what we did:

Supplies

white cardstock

two different colour paper

crafting scissors

glue stick

flower punch

1-inch circle punch

some hot pink stickers

ink and stamp pad

I assembled one flower so they could all see my vision :) and I punched out all the shapes.

Then I let them loose, with V's supervision

I personally don't think the purpose is necessarily to make things look a certain way but just to get them used to having fun sticking and using different things. At least that's what I tell myself.

the 4 original cards

look at the edges

enjoying the heart stamp

I bought the heart stamp at the Crazy Store in Dec 2010 - this is the first time they're using it properly. I tried once before and they tried to eat the rubber off the wooden part, so they were clearly not ready

red ink pad from Mr P Home - set of 3 for R40

scissors - about 6 pairs for R60 at CNA

let them go wild...

it all works out in the end

and the grannies like anything :)

I don't know if this is speaking to anybody??? but I always felt like I had to be the one to do anything fun with the babies then I realised they'd be 10 before we ever got to everything on my mental list.

So now I put my organising skills to work and I delegate.

They do things with V and once a month (yes, it's still once a month) when their granny visits, I delegate the painting outside to her (she used to paint so this is me encouraging her to share her skills).

We'll still occasionally do some crafting on the weekends (mostly Kendra while Connor is sleeping) but I don't feel guilty if we do nothing but run around outside, clean the house, read and go to gym :)

Strange, I never thought I would be that mother (and the word crafting still makes me think of badly-made things with ice-cream sticks that you feel compelled to keep) but all the delights of the internet bring it out in the best of us. Ha!

Are you that mother?

What are your mad parenting skills? :) Don't be shy - we all have them.