Affiliates
Partners
Handmade Valentine Fiasco 2010
By Moriah on February 11th, 2010
When we were little my mom used to cut hearts out of red construction paper and then she’d glue white heart-shaped paper doilies on them. On top she’d diagonally glue a stick of white Wrigley’s spearmint gum – because it has an arrow on it – and wala! handmade valentines. We made those almost every year.
(Until I was old enough to want the store-bought version that all my friends had. Handmade wasn’t so, um, appreciated back then.)
You know where this is going, right?
I had this brilliant idea to make my kids’ valentines for their classes this year. Madeline’s party is today so yesterday I finished gathering the supplies. Well, turns out Wrigley’s doesn’t sell the 5 packs of gum anymore with the individual papers on them. I searched high and low. (Which means I checked Walmart, two different Walgreens, and a CVS.) The only spearmint gum I could find were the 15 packs that have foil-wrapped pieces.
I finally settled for doublemint because it was the only one with an arrow on it that I could find in the little 5-pack. BUT IT’S GREEN. This isn’t St. Patrick’s Day! Argh.
Okay, letting go of my perfectionism…
After we got home from church last night and the kids were in bed, I started gluing doilies to the red SQUARES I had cut out earlier. (I would have taken the time to cut out hearts but I figured these are preschoolers – they wouldn’t notice either way – and saved myself the trouble.)
Note to self: glue stick is incompatible with fragile paper doilies. And also? The glue pushes through all the holes. Messy and no good.
Finally I used my scrapbooking glue roller tool thingy and very gently and carefully got those doilies on the paper.
Next up, gum. I ripped open the first pack and sat and stared at it for a sec, processing… THEY WERE NOT INDIVIDUALLY PAPERED!!! ONLY FOIL!!! I did all that store-searching for nothing. They (meaning Wrigley’s) didn’t even have the decency to put an arrow on the foil. Only an etched picture of a man and a trash can. (What’s that all about?)
At this point I wanted to hurl the whole project across the room. I settled for drawing an arrow on each FOIL-WRAPPED PIECE OF GUM with a Sharpie. (Which had to be done very carefully, I might add, since Sharpie tends to rip foil-plated paper.)
All that to say, next year we’ll probably be buying Valentines.
12 Responses to “Handmade Valentine Fiasco 2010”
Leave a Reply
OH MY WORD. I’d have hurled them out the window LONG before the gum fiasco. ;-)
I bought Valentine’s for my kids to give away (suckers and a card, cheap!) only to have them spend time after school every day this week making their own! So now I guess their classmates will get two cards from them. If they go to school, that is. Snow today, ice tomorrow morning, who knows if there will be school tomorrow.
Although it was a fiasco, those hand-made valentines will be appreciated! I am partial to those as opposed to store-bought.
my goodness….that was a lot of effort!! We had our own bit of a fiasco yesterday making Valentine’s. Some little girl – and it wasn’t me – decided it was really fun to cut with scissors. She cut my stack of pretty paper that still was going to be used and then she attacked the already made Valentine’s!
You have lost your mind – store bought for sure! :) Although, I love a good craft, just not for kids that don’t appreciate it!
I bought Abbey’s this year, but I was pleasantly surprised by the number of handmade cards she received. I think it was more than half!
Also, I was in her classroom earlier this morning helping them make their Valentine bags and learned that same lesson about glue sticks/doilies. Yuck.
Sorry your project didn’t turn out as you’d hoped. ;(
I made you a Valentine this year but not with the gum and doilies!! But you must not laugh!! Your sister looked on line and found some cute homemade Valentines. What a great mom you are.
I am so understanding the OCD tendencies. I am right there with you.
At least these preschoolers will be reminded not to litter (man and can). How about sewing next year’s cards? It’s easier than it sounds, especially if you use pre-cut hearts. Here’s an example: http://connectingthedots-jj.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-handmade-by-me.html
Mom- I think that makes four times you’ve told me not to laugh!
We didn’t even do store bought cards. We just bought the Fun Dips which had a to and from spot right on the package.
Oh no! This is so something I would do! LOL