Hello, My name is Jenna… and I love kids crafts! I especially love kids crafts that can be displayed and not rot or fall apart. I like permanency and non perishable kids crafts! lol. For some reason I have a hard time doing kids crafts with the kiddos that I know are just going to be thrown away. So I strive to makes my kids crafts little works of art, that can be displayed on the wall. The best kids crafts are seasonal crafts, so that you can take it down and change it up… or in my case, they give me more of a reason to make more crafts with the kiddos. So, this week we made Meri Meri’s Cookie Garland Kit, but of course we changed it up a bit. Instead of cookies (because they are perishable), we made a baking soda clay Valentines garland and painted it with water colours. It turned out beautiful and will last forever! (wink)

HOW TO MAKE A COOKIE CUTTER, BAKING SODA CLAY, WATER

COLOUR, VALENTINES GARLAND

MATERIALS NEEDED TO MAKE A CLAY VALENTINES GARLAND

• Baking Soda Clay (Recipe found here “Baking Soda Clay Handprint Keepsakes” – a previous post)
• Valentine Cookie cutters (I used the cookie cutters in Meri Meri Valentines Cookie Cutter Garland Kit)
• Paints (we used water colours, but any kid friendly paint will do)
• Paint brushes
• Skewers (to make the small holes that will be used to hang up the ornaments)
• String to hang it all up
• 2 Command Hooks to hang your Clay Garland to the wall

METHOD TO MAKE A CLAY VALENTINES GARLAND

Step 1: Make some salt dough clay (you can really use any clay). I chose to make this Clay Valentines Garland out of baking soda clay because it can easily be made at home and has a nice white colour. If you are using a different clay and want them to have a white background then just paint them white after they dry.

Step 2: After the clay is cooled, knead the clay and roll it flat with a rolling-pin. Use your cookie cutters to make your clay Valentine shapes. Poke 2 holes in the tops of each shape with the skewers to be able to hang them up.

Step 3: Let them dry. You can put them in the oven at 175 degrees for 3 hours, flipping them half way through or you can let them air dry on the counter for a couple of days.

Step 4: Kids craft time! Put out some fun water-colour paints for your kids. Try to choose colours that won’t look horrible when mixed together, because THEY WILL GET MIXED TOGETHER! Set the paints up in a way that the kiddos won’t fight over them, and give each child the same amount of paint brushes (again to avoid fighting). Put down some paper to catch the paint from getting all over your table.

Step 5: Let your beautiful painted clay Valentine shapes dry. These water coloured painted clay Valentine pieces didn’t take very long to dry. Like 10 minutes! Perfect!

Step 6: Thread your string through your clay Valentine garland pieces. First thread from the front to back, and then back to front, so that the string ends up on the back of each clay piece. Like this… The Meri Meri Valentines Cookie Cutter Garland Kit came with 2 long ribbon stings to use to hang them up but I was just feeling a plain white string for this clay Valentine garland project. I’m excited to use the ribbon strings from this kit on another craft project because they are super cute.

Step 7: Hang your super awesome valentines clay garland up for everyone to see! I always use command hooks to hang anything seasonal up, so that I can remove it without creating holes the walls.

I hope this tutorial to make your own cookie cutter clay Valentine garland inspires you to create your own super cute Valentine garland. You could be super risky make this garland out of cookies, and protect it with your life, because if I made something with cookies on it in this house it would be attacked within minutes. Many tears would be shed, fights would be had, over needing to have a cookie every second, until they were all gone. Or just let your cookie garland get demolished within a few seconds… create at your own risk… not my problem! I’ll stick with the clay version for now… until my kids learn something called restraint… and maybe me too… LOL. We can’t have cookies in this house, because we are cookie monsters!

Until next time, have a very Happy Valentine’s Day with your lovers, and enjoy creating beautiful things!

XO JCL

Please check out my other Valentine’s day inspired decorations and kids crafts here!

The images below are links to Amazon products that I used in this clay Valentine garland tutorial…