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It is always best to give gifts from the heart. It is even better if it is a gift from the heart in the shape of a heart and made for Valentine’s Day. Here are some ideas for Valentine’s Day crafts for senior citizens.
A valentine trivet is a fun craft idea. All you need is a 6 inch square white tile, small mosaic tiles, (3/8 inch or ½ inch) in any color you choose, but you should have either red or pink tiles to make a heart in the center of the tile. You’ll need about 80 mosaic tiles for the heart and about 65 mosaic tiles to fill the area outside the heart. You will also need tile adhesive, premixed tile grout, a piece of cardboard (as wide as the tile at least), a sponge, a fine-point permanent marker, four small, round pieces of felt, and a piece of paper.
Before you can begin to make your trivet, you must first make a heart design to trace onto the center of the tile. To do this, take a piece of paper, fold it in half and cut a half a heart shape about five inches long and about two inches wide at the widest part, along the center fold of the paper (or you can trace an existing heart shape from a cookie cutter or a valentine card that will fit into the center of the six inch square tile). When the paper is opened, it should fit within the tile nicely, leaving some space on the outer edges. If it isn’t the shape and size you want, fold the paper and trim some more or start all over again until you get the heart you wish to trace onto your tile.
Center the heart- shaped paper on the tile and trace around it with the marker. Glue the red or pink mosaic tiles inside the heart shape design on the larger tile. Try to space the tiles evenly. When the inside is filled, glue the other color tiles outside of the heart. Let the glued tiles dry. When the tile glue is dry, spread the grout over the mosaic tiles by covering it with grout and then scraping off the excess with the piece of cardboard. Wipe off the excess grout with a damp sponge. Then let the grout dry for a couple of days. You may have to wipe the finished product off again after it dries in order to get rid of any residue left on top of the mosaics. To finish your trivet, put small, round felt pieces in the four corners of the trivet on the back side.
Another Valentine ’s Day craft for senior citizens is a valentine mosaic flower pot. Materials that are needed include: an 8 inch clay pot, ½ inch mosaic tiles (some white and some pink), pre-mixed tile grout, sponge, tape, pencil, six inch piece of florist clay, artificial flowers, paper, craft stick, and a fine-tipped permanent marker. On the paper, make a heart pattern by folding the paper in half and cutting a half a heart on it. Open the paper and see if the size of the heart fits against the side of the clay pot and if it looks the way you will want it to look. If not, trim the heart pattern or try again with another piece of paper. When you get the heart shape that you want, trace the pattern onto the pot. (You can put more than one heart design on the pot if you wish. Just make sure that the patterns are spaced evenly apart. It is easiest to do this if you divide the pot into imaginary quarters. Put one pattern on and then on the exact opposite side, trace the pattern again. Then, halfway between the two patterns, you can trace another heart and just opposite of that, a fourth one. This method will help you space the hearts evenly if you choose to have more than one heart on your pot.) After you have placed the heart(s) on the pot, glue the pink tiles, spaced evenly within each heart until the space is filled, then glue all outside areas with the white tiles until the space is filled. Allow to dry. After the glue is dry, spread the grout across all the mosaic tiles with the craft stick and wipe off the excess with a sponge, rinsing the sponge as needed. Then let the grout dry for a couple of days. When the grout is dry, push the florist clay into the pot and insert artificial flowers for a lovely Valentine’s Day centerpiece.
A silly valentine gag craft is “cupid poop”. To make it, take a small zipper food storage bag and put in about a half of a cup of candy conversation hearts, or red jelly beans, or red hot hearts. Zip the food storage bag closed and add a tag which says the following (type and run off copies if making more than one bag): “Candy is not good for you, and flowers cost too much. I looked at cards and they all said “my darling” and some such. So I got you something special, inside this bag please snoop. It’s magical and full of love, it’s a bag of Cupid Poop!”
A Valentine wreath is a decorating craft and is quite simple to make. To make the wreath you need a 12 inch circle of white craft foam, a six inch piece of wire (to hang the wreath), red, white and pink construction paper, tape, glue and scissors. Optional: ribbons, lace, buttons, red, white, and silver glitter (and any additional items you wish to add to your wreath). Make a variety of hearts out of the various colored paper. Add accessory items to the hearts if you wish (such as tying bows out of the ribbon and gluing them to some of the hearts, gluing buttons around the edges of a small heart, gluing lace around the edge of another heart, or filling the center of a heart with glitter). When you have made several hearts, start gluing them to the craft foam. Fill in the empty spaces with smaller hearts. You will be gluing some hearts over portions of others as you work. When you have the foam covered, bend a loop of wire about six inches long to make a circle. Twist the two ends of the wire together. Put glue on the twisted ends and insert into the top of the craft foam wreath. When dry, tie a ribbon bow at the top to hide the wire.
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