Love Bugs

Emma had a cough and stuffy nose this morning, so I didn't want to send her to Sunday School.  She was up with the sun, so we made love bugs together.  It might have been simpler to get six people dressed, fed, and out the door to church on time, but that's all in the past now.

This is a fun and easy craft for little ones, using toilet paper tubes, construction paper, and whatever odds and ends you have laying around to decorate with.  I pulled out stickers and pipe cleaners.   I've done all the advanced math for you, and calculated that a four inch strip of construction paper will precisely cover an empty toilet paper roll.

A clothes pin will help hold the paper in place while waiting for the glue to dry.  Crafts like this that require a slight amount of precision but are still achievable are great for fine motor skills!  I sit on my hands during projects like this.  Literally.  I'm always so tempted to grab it away and do it for her so it looks exactly "right".  But she can do it, and I'm doing better at remembering that the whole reason we make time for this kind of thing is for HER to have fun and take pride in what SHE creates.

Yes, I'm doing better at remembering.  Mostly.

We like tacky glue better than Elmer's for arts and crafts.  It is harder to get out of the bottle, but it sticks better.  Because it's tacky.  And we LOVE tacky stuff.  Ha!

You can take this opportunity to teach how to cut a heart out of a folded piece of paper, admiring bed head while your little one works.  The heart becomes the "wings" when you run a bead of glue down the center fold and attach it to the back of the paper towel roll.

Punch a hole near the top of the tube for antennae.  I had to do this part because I was told it would make Emma too sad to "punch a love bug".  I have no problem punching bugs of any kind.

Decorate with an abundance of stickers.  These would be super cute made out of patterned scrap book paper if you actually wanted to make an investment in your Valentine insect collection.  We went on the cheap and used old paper that is so faded it is hardly even pink.  I think I bought this back when Hannah was in preschool.

Thread a pipe cleaner through the hole and bend both halves into cute shapes for antennae.

 Go ahead and make a big mess.  Bright and early, first thing in the morning.

It will all be fine.  Creativity is a messy proposition.

I've had sparkly snowflakes hanging from the kitchen light during January.  These were from our advent activities, and I forced invited the entire family to participate in making them.  They were the last of the Christmas items to go, so it was a little sad to take them down today.

But we had love waiting in the wings.

And now my (love-ly) light is looking rather February-ish.

By the way, we made a third love bug, specifically so I could give it curly hair.  Because I can not leave a preschool craft well enough alone, that's why.

Okay, okay....so maybe I don't ALWAYS remember to keep my hands off.  :-)

These were cute and fun, and while possibly not as spiritually stimulating as a Sunday School lesson, I enjoyed a quiet, crafty, (very) early morning with my girl.