Puffy Paint Valentines Cards for Kids to Make

Make Puffy Paint Valentines Cards using our 3-ingredient puffy paint recipe!  This is such a fun Valentines craft for kids.

We’re crafting up a storm for Valentines Day here in my home daycare right now.  Have you seen all the Valentines crafts and activities that we’ve been busy with? Today I thought it would be fun to make some homemade Valentines cards with puffy paint.

Homemade puffy paint is very easy to make with 3 common kitchen ingredients and a bit of water.

The cards turned out great, and if you wanted to, you could also use the puffy hearts to make ornaments or garlands for Valentines Day.

How to make our puffy paint Valentines:

Supplies:

• homemade puffy paint: you’ll find our puffy paint recipe here
• black crayon
• small bowls
• Q-tips (aka cotton swabs or cotton buds)
•  coloured card stock for the cards
• white cardboard (cereal box weight) for an ornament or garland
• microwave
• hole punch and ribbon or string if you’re making ornaments and garlands

Instructions:

Cut your cardboard into rectangles just a little larger than your hand.

With a black crayon, draw a heart.  Press firmly on the crayon, and go over your lines if necessary, so they’re nice and dark.  You can leave some hearts blank, or you can draw some designs to fill in with your paint like I did here:

If you’re making ornaments or a garland, punch the holes in your hearts before painting and baking.

If you’re making a card, fold your card stock and crease it before painting.  Open it back up to paint and bake it.

Using your Q tip, apply a thick layer of paint onto your heart.

The younger children tend to “paint” with their Q-tips, but older children can be encouraged to puddle their paint and dab it around with their Q-tip to make their designs.

Because the paint is so thick, you can also create a layered painting like the one I made here on a piece of red card stock:

Put your painting in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to cook it and puff your paint up.  In the past I’ve gone with 30 seconds.  For our Valentines hearts, I went with 20 seconds.  Both times worked equally well.

Aren’t the results gorgeous?

Now you’re ready to add a message to your card or to string your ornaments and garlands.

Wouldn’t these look beautiful brightening up a window or doorway?

Want to see another neat idea?  Check out these fun and funky Rainbow Loom Valentine’s cards from Skip to My Lou!  There’s a free printable included in the post.

Skip to My Lou also has tons of printable Valentines for kids to make and give this year.

Looking for more Valentine’s crafts and activities for kids?

6 Easy Valentine’s Crafts for Kids

5 More Easy Valentine’s Crafts for Kids

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Jackie Currie

Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.