L.O.V.E
Prepare yourselves...I am about to blog-vomit Valentine's Day ALL over your screen ...
We have had an uneventful month. By design. As we haven't had any scheduled visitors or trips following our Christmas trip to the states, we took the opportunity to give our wallets a much needed rest. Plus (yuck) we got our share of the sickies and had a few weeks of adjusting to our new "school-day" schedule. So needless to say, its been a bit of a homebody sort of New Year for us, so far.
The thing is... the part I love MOST about living over here is the travel. So...I have been going a bit stir-crazy. Asher & I are tagging along on one of Jason's work trips to The Netherlands tomorrow and I am oh-so-ready for a quick, family trip & a change of scenery!!
But in the meantime, I have had to channel all that stay-at-home energy somewhere... SO cue Valentine's Day...!
Valentine's Day exists in Germany and you will see cards and decorations and some Valentinesy stuff in the stores, but it is by NO means to the level that the US celebrates. But either way I think it's a cute holiday and an especially craft-worthy holiday! So... the craftermath at our house has been REAL this month...
Asher and I have been attending a playgroup in Oberursel, a nearby town, since we moved here. I made a fellow American expat friend after living here for just a few weeks, she invited us to the playgroup and we've really loved it. It's a great (big) group of kids and moms and honestly Asher & I both look forward to it each week. So ... when the group leader was talking about adding in some more structured activity time, I jumped at the chance to get involved. I started leading a craft time for the kids and have been having SO much fun coming up with activities and crafts.
Asher hasn't quite learned to appreciate crafting YET...
...But he's my little Love Bug either way!
So we had an adorable little playgroup party & then I got to work on Asher's Valentine's Day box. I know that this is a super common (and also dreaded!) task for most elementary school moms & dads. But I had a lot of fun with it. Asher was playing with his cars and a cardboard box the other day and I just knew I turn that Amazon delivery into something EVEN MORE FUN than a cardboard box. If there is such a thing ;) So I got to work! I rounded up a bunch of toilet paper rolls, some more cardboard, whatever scrapbook paper and glue options I had in my craft supplies and started building ...
I went from this: To this: !!!
I would have done a step by step tutorial, but I seriously just played around with it! I went from simply covering a box to making it a double decker car port, with a ramp & a hook & latch garage door to finish it off... It's not perfect and it's still just a cardboard box, but I think my car-truck-bus-plane-train-helicopter-obsessed little Asher will have as much fun playing with it as I did making it!
Then I, of course, couldn't leave the MAN of the house out of the craft-action. So I ManBouquet'ed it up for him. We have LOTS of trips coming up in the Spring so I wanted to keep his Valentine's Day gift on the low price tag side of life. And the dude can always use more socks...so. I present to you ... the Sock Bouquet! Hope he gets a kick (pun intended) out of it :)
Here's a super quick tutorial if you need a quick, last-minute gifty for the man-friend in your life!
Step 7 .. VOILA!
So there ya go! My Valentine's DIYs! Proud of myself for gifting and crafting on a budget! I hope my two dudes have a lovely little Valentine's Day. And I hope you do too.
Check back for a post on our upcoming trip to Den Haag & Gouda - The Netherlands!
Embrace the Wilde,
lindsey
