Host a Valentine’s Day Crafty Tea Party for Your Little Ones

Throwing a Valentine’s Day tea party for your little ones could be the ultimate plan to get everybody in a crafty mood. Tea parties are a great way to celebrate the month of love whilst also encouraging creativity and practicing social skills, and the kids will love the sweet treats and revel in DIY activities.

Set the scene by making handmade invitations with your child to give to guests. Create them by cutting large hearts out of scrapbook paper and decorate accordingly. The kids can write out the details of the party once created. Let over invitation paper can be used for the craft stations or table decorations such as place cards or place mats for the lunch station. Traditionally, a tea party includes scones, finger sandwiches and a dessert but consider asking the parents of guests to each bring something sweet or savoury to mix up the lunch menu, such as love heart sarnies and love heart cookies, then you can focus of setting up the craft stations.

So here’s a run-down of my top four activities for the kids – do let me know if you come up with any more!

Stained Glass Hearts

stained-glass-hearts-suncatcher-4

Translucent hanging hearts are perfect for decorating a window space. They are simple to make and will fill your little ones room with warm hue sunbeams.

Begin by helping the kids fold a sheet of waxed paper in half along its length then unfold. Create wax-crayon shavings using the pencil sharpener and deposit evenly across one half of the waxed paper. Fold the clean half of the paper then crimp the three remaining edges with half an inch fold over. Use the kraft paper to protect your ironing surface, place the waxed paper on top of it, then add another layer of kraft paper over the waxed paper. Iron until all the shavings have melted then leave to cool. Finally, let the kids trace and cut out hearts of various sizes. When the glass hearts have been taken home you can use the silk thread to hang each heart up.

You will need:

  • Iron
  • Pencil
  • Scissors
  • Pencil sharpener
  • Wax crayons
  • Waxed paper
  • Kraft paper
  • Silk thread

Friendship Bracelets

One of the sweetest craft ideas for your little ones, friendship bracelets are the ultimate gift every party guest can give one another. If you buy a ready-made kit it will save time searching for all the bits and bobs required. Most bracelet kits will include chain bracelets, various embroidery threads, jump rings, lobster clasps, plastic needles, safety pins and an instruction booklet for you or the children to follow. Encourage the kids to communicate with each other about colours and style so each guest will go away with a bracelet they will love. All they need to do is master weaving the threads together then you can take care of the stuff that requires safety pins and needle work!

Paper Heart Wreath

Valentines Heart collage wreath

This beautiful craft is so fun and easy to make, your child will love making them as well as sharing them with the people he or she loves.

To create the foundation of the wreath, use a large bowl trace around it on white card to make a large circle, then place a smaller bowl in the middle of the large circle and trace around that to create a smaller circle. Then cut out the circle. Take a piece of pink card and let the kids draw love hearts of varying sizes. If you want the hearts to be the same size and shape use the first as a template, otherwise let them draw away and repeat the process with the red card. Take the cardboard ring you cut out previously and punch two holes approximately an inch apart so you can thread ribbon through them to hang the wreath. Make sure you knot the ribbon at the back so it doesn’t come loose. Begin gluing all of the pink and red hearts to the wreath ring and voila! It’s worth suggesting to the children to lay out all the hearts before gluing them so they can see what the finished craft will look like.

You will need:

  • Two bowls; one large and one small
  • Pink
  • Red card
  • White card
  • Hole puncher
  • Pink or red ribbon
  • Glue
  • Scissors

Hand Shaped Valentines

Let your little one send a touching message to a friend or family member by creating a Valentine’s Day card traced from their little hands. All you need is construction paper, a pen or pencil, glue, scissors, glitter (if you dare), colouring pens and scraps of material to decorate the edges of the paper hand. Once all the decorations are in place and dry, the kids can write a sweet message to their loved one and even stick a love heart themed sweet in the middle. Or, ask all of the parents to bring some small headshots of their children so they can stick a photograph of themselves in the middle of the cards. Bring a chalk board to the ‘card station’ and write a list of messages for the children to take inspiration from.

Hopefully this will leave you and your children inspired for Valentine’s Day. Don’t forget to pin me any of your own ideas or creations!