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This is my second post for today, scroll down for today’s Adventures in Couponing post.

Since the beginning of the school year my kids have been begging me to come in to their classes and do something for arts & crafts.  I have a day job so I knew it’d take some planning and it would be out a ways.  But I thought I could make it work, and it would be pretty easy, to come in and make Valentine cards with them in February.  However, once I had all my fantastic supplies, I decided to do something bigger.

Did I already mention fantastic supplies?  Fantastic supplies is an understatement.  I have been so fortunate to meet some really great people in this industry – the papercrafting industry – really great and generous people.  My friends at American Crafts and Glue Dots, and dear sweet Patricia – the Paper Temptress – supplied everything we needed to make some really fun Valentine crafts.  I cannot thank these fine folks enough for giving to my kids’ school – because as we all know, school budgets and programs are being cut right and left and luxuries like pretty paper and fun crafty goodness are a thing of the past.

The kids returned from recess to find fun Valentine papers in red and white, Dot N Go rollers, and stickers, Thickers, rubons and chipboard on their desks.  I wish you could have heard them come in – the girls were giggly over the stickers and the boys were so excited by these little glue contraptions.

That’s my freckle-nosed boy…I {heart} him so much.

The kids were so excited when I told them they get to take home everything…even the Dot N Go.  I was surprised none of them had ever seen or used one of these.  I highly recommend these for home use – way less mess than regular glue….no mess at all.

And here’s our finished product – I’m totally on a banner kick lately and thought that having the kids measure to cut the paper would incorporate a little bit of learning in to the project.

The teacher put these up in the hallway and received lots of compliments on them – fun stuff.

For the younger kids I opted to do Valentine collage pictures.  I just had them cut out a heart – had to teach them how to fold the paper, draw an ear and cut it out to make a heart – and then adhere that to the larger paper, and then embellish to their heart’s content.

That’s my little girl – sans her 2 front teeth.

I was pleasantly surprised that the younger kids could manage the rubons pretty well.

The teacher wanted to put these up but the kids were too excited to get these home and show their parents.  The teacher told me that in her 16 years of teaching she had never seen or received such cool stuff for her students before.

Thanks so much American Crafts, Glue Dots and Paper Temptress!