Clothespin Heart

As a Mum of a toddler I love crafts that young children can get involved with. Clothespins are a wonderful resource to use. Since creating our own clothespin Hungry Caterpillar we have been looking for an excuse to get creative with pegs again. Red Ted Art’s 31 Days of Love series was a perfect excuse to create a clothespin heart decoration.

Valentines Day – Clothespin Heart Materials:

• * Wooden clothespins – we used three packets of 24 storm pegs
• * Red paint
• * Wood glue (although not essential)
• * A large zip-loc bag
• * Non-stick baking paper
• * Wire coat hanger and pliers
• * Red ribbon

Valentines Day – Clothespin Heart What we did:

How do you think I managed to get a two and a half year old to paint 60 clothespins without getting paint everywhere? Our secret tool – a zip-loc bag. We squirted red paint and wood glue into a large zip-loc bag and spread the two mixtures around the bag. We then added 20 wooden clothespins. I zipped the bag up and gave it to Adam. He had a wonderful time shaking, prodding, kneading and jumping with the zip-loc bag to cover the pegs in red paint. We picked the coloured pegs out one at a time and placed them onto baking paper in order to dry. Tip – try and pick the pegs up by the metal part to avoid getting finger prints on the red paint. We repeated the process until all 60 pegs were painted and left them to dry overnight.

To create the clothes peg heart frame I used a wire coat hanger. I used pliers to help bend the wire into a heart shape. We wrapped red ribbon around the coat hanger handle so that it could hang on the wall.

Adding the clothespins to the wire frame was a great activity to develop Adam’s fine motor skills. He had to use his pincer grip and hand-eye coordination to place the pegs onto the wire frame. The activity also helped to develop his perseverance and concentration skills – Adam kept coming back to the activity several times to complete the heart. I helped to spread the pegs evenly around the frame.

All that was left to do was hang our kid-made clothespin heart onto the wall. Perfect for a Valentine’s Day decoration and keepsake.

Threading Love Hearts Busy Bag

How Do Dinosaurs Say I love You Love Heart Eggs

Neon Valentine Sensory Bottles

Visit Adventures of Adam for more toddler Valentine’s Day activities.

During a difficult pregnancy suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) Emma vowed to make every day an adventure once she had recovered. Adventures of Adam is the outcome of completing a 100 day play challenge with her toddler as part of that promise. Emma has a section dedicated to HG friendly play activities so that Mums can still be part of their children’s play whilst they are ill.

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