Valentine’s Day is serious business in our house this year. My 4-year-old son told me that you have to make cards for all the people you love. To him that’s at least 60 people! And we have to make an extra special one for his new friend whom he thinks is the prettiest girl in all of Glen Ridge.

I don’t think we will be making 60 cards, but we have created our own little printing shop in our house.

Taking inspiration from the simplest of printmaking forms called collographs here’s how we did it:

Materials
1. Cardboard
2. White glue
3. Found objects such as yarn, leaves, burlap, or other textured materials.
4. Paint
5. Brushes
6. Rolling Pin
7. Card stock or construction paper

Directions
1. Cut out heart out of cardboard (cereal boxes work well). We made the heart about 3″ high
2. Glue anything with texture to the heart and let dry for a couple hours. Make sure you keep the textures no more than 1/8″ high. We thought Cheerios were fun!
3. Paint the cardboard evenly with a brush making sure the paint doesn’t puddle too much. You choose: one color, multiple colors.
4. Lay paper over top of heart. We offset the paper so the heart would be on the bottom half. With even pressure, roll the rolling pin over the backside of the paper. One or two passes is sufficient otherwise the design will turn muddy.
5. Once dry we folded the paper to make stationary.
6. Lastly my son did his favorite part; learning how to write -”I love you”

The best part about this is no two cards are alike!

Along with cards which we will give to his classmates, we will celebrate at home with a little party. I am thinking heart shaped pancakes, or baking one of these treats. We love a good excuse to celebrate.

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