Valentine's Day Bouquet: Paper Flowers Craft

Having children, the meaning of Valentine's Day is quite a bit different than it was in the past for me. Of course I love my husband and know that it would be nice to spend time with him and exchange the classic gifts... but there's just more than that now.

When I look at Big Sister E and Little Sister B I know that Valentine's Day isn't just about flowers and chocolate and jewelry (although those are nice) or any gift at all, really. They just want to wear pink and red clothes, bake some cookies, hand out cards to their friends, and hear about any Valentine's Day ideas and crafts that they can have fun creating.

Considering there are 110 million roses sold and delivered for this holiday, I thought that this year we could "grow" our own right at home that the girls would enjoy even more.

I had heard about this easy method to make flowers from a few people I know, so it was time to sit down and give it a shot. Being our first attempt, I didn't even go with red paper, but just with an ad that I pulled out of a magazine with some mixed colors of mostly blues and browns. Festive, right?

Ripping the two pages apart and then into quarters, I had the makings for my eight roses.

After rounding the edges and drawing a spiral, I cut along my pattern to form one long strip.

After the first flower or two, I realized that the oval shape of my papers were making it a little difficult to roll them up evenly, so I trimmed the remaining sheets to make them more round.

All that was left was to roll the spirals from the outside in, applying a dab of glue at the end to hold them in place.

Although the fact that they aren't red makes them a little harder to distinguish that they're roses, I was happy with the outcome and used a combination of tape and glue to balance the flowers onto small shoots on my branch and voilà! Instant flowers!

My husband has already teased me about the look, but I'm really liking the crafty, homemade feel. Besides, unless he's planning on shelling out a whole lot more money than what these cost ($0) and bringing home a bouquet himself, I don't think that he should be the one complaining.

I'm sure that the kids and I will be partaking in more Valentine's Day crafts as the holiday gets closer... and the act of spending the time together making them is just as entertaining and satisfying (if not more) than the end results. The best gift from them has always been a big smile and an even bigger hug, so paper flowers might just be the icing on the cake.

Do you take part in any crafts or baking or special events for Valentine's Day?