A Pinteresting Admission

Last fall, when I posted some of Leo's birthday party photos on Face*book, a friend from my mom group commented that she was sure I existed to make the rest of them look bad. It's true, that as a designer, a goal of mine is to make beautiful things, things that are worthy of being pinned. And in fact, it seems that I might be starting to succeed at that! 

But that is not the whole story. 

Friday, I grabbed the stack of Valentines and put them in an envelope to go in Leo's bag. Then I realized that I forgot to make the Valentine snack I had promised to send in for the party. Because yeah, getting things ready ahead of time, not my forte. So, I got busy creating these. Of course, I had to embellish the container to make it feel more festive with my new favorite craft supply, washi tape. 

And...promptly forgot to put the envelope of Valentines in Leo's bag. 

Mom fail!

I felt a little bit better when I picked Leo up that afternoon and discovered that the only Valentine he received was from his teacher. The kids in his class really are a little young for this tradition, so I guess none of them participated. Oh well. I will still be sending in the cards next week for a little belated surprise. I'm sure they will still be appreciated. 

So yeah, I might be good at making things look good. But supermom, far from it!

Hearts, Dinosaurs and Washi Tape

When I was in fourth grade, my heart was broken when my teacher decided to have us make a donation to charity instead of passing out Valentine cards in class. I already had the supplies I was going to use to make mine—a heart shaped pad of paper with beautiful red, pink, purple and blue sheets, and stickers to decorate with. I never got to use them. So, imagine my delight when I picked Leo up from school the other day and his teacher told me she'd be sending me a list of names of the kids in the class. 

I get to make Valentines! 

I mean, Leo's a little young to do it himself, right? I fully expect to let him take the lead when he is older, but I do hope to pass along my love of art and design. It's never too early to get started, right?

I did what any good crafter does these days. I consulted Pinterest for inspiration. I had a rough idea of doing something with dinosaurs, thanks to a suggestion from my mom. When I found the phrase, "dino-mite," I came up with my idea. 

To ensure Leo had the option to participate, I printed the outlines of the dinosaur on to a red piece of paper. Then, I got out a some chalk pencils to see what he would do. I quickly realized that I needed to tape the paper down or he would just push it around without making any marks. I got out some washi tape and decided to tape the paper to the floor. Leo made a few marks, but mostly seemed interested in carrying around as many of the pencils as he could fit into one hand. 

I set about printing the card backgrounds and left Leo to do his thing. When I looked back down at the floor, he had taken a longer piece of the pink washi tape and put it on the paper. I decided to go with it, and got out a few more rolls I thought would coordinate. I ripped off some pieces for him to put down, and tried to encourage him to color a little bit more on the paper. 

He mostly seemed interested in doing this...

 

He did decide he wanted to sit on my lap and see what I was doing when I was gluing the dinosaurs on to the cards. 

The introduction of the washi tape into the design inspired me to take it further. I always new that I was going to add up side down hearts as spikes on the dinos' backs, but I hadn't quite figured out how I was going to do that. I had planned to print, cut, and glue them. Using washi tape allowed me to eliminate a few steps. All I had to do was cut them and stick them down. I will admit, it's a little tricky to cut smaller than half inch hearts out of tape, but I love the way they turned out. Hopefully Leo's friends will too! 

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!