Getting Real With Veronica Ibarra
OK, so our 12 Days of Christmas theme with all handmade ornaments of the 364 items mentioned in the song didn’t actually get finished. We only got 256 items done by Christmas, but the tree was full and the kids and I had a blast. To carry on with the fun, we’ve decided to hand make just about every decoration this year for every holiday, including cards.
We’ve begun our February project with a Valentine’s banner. We began with the cutting out of an ample supply of hearts. To fancy them up we’ve been using craft scissors to give them different kinds of lace-like edges. To add to the creativity we’ve been using construction paper and scrapbooking paper with different designs on them. These hearts work for decoration and as Valentines to give out to classmates.
Once upon a time, before the commercialization of holidays and card giving, handmade was the only option. When printers began to manufacture cards some people were even snubbed for not taking the time to hand write their own messages. This Valentine’s Day we are bringing back that tradition of making our Valentine’s personal to the ones we give them to.
How this idea will play out for the rest of the year is anyone’s guess. My daughter has already been telling me all the things we can do for St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Spring, birthdays and more. She loves the idea so much that I don’t see how we can do otherwise. Plus as I have been a collector of art supplies for years with requests from family members to give art supplies as gifts we are well stocked for the task. This is looking like a fun project and a way to be frugal at the same time while also making everything more personal. With a combination like that it seems like a win-win all around to me.
I would love more ideas, though to be honest even with planning sometimes the best things we do happen with us making it up as we go along. It’s the fun of the adventure.
