Valentine Clothespin Craft!

With a growing number of e-cards making their way onto the greeting card scene, I keep wondering when the scales will be tipped in favor of e-cards over snail-mail cards.  And as beautiful as many e-cards are, I still enjoy opening real envelopes to find friends’ handwritten sentiments inside.  Then, once the initial excitement of receiving a card has faded, days later I find myself going back and reading them again and again.

If you’re like me you’ll especially enjoy this craft because it gets you and your children working together on a creative activity that will decorate your home AND give you a cute way to display the Valentine cards your children receive in the mail or bring home from school next week.

Supplies you’ll need:

• Wooden clothespins
• Light sandpaper
• Tempura paints, sparkle paints,sparkle glue
• Paint brushes with small brush tips to paint clothespins
• Decorative embellishments for accents
• Ribbon, colored twine, or wired string
• Optional: glue and/or glue gun

 My kids and I kept it pretty simple, but you can get as fancy and decorative as you’d like.  Consider using bright-colored paints, since when the paint absorbs into the clothespin, it tends to darken and lose some pizazz. 

To get started, lightly sand the clothespins on both sides; this helps the paint to  absorb into the wood.  Paint both sides of the clothespin with the colors of your choice.  They should dry fairly quickly.  You can even add embellishments as they’re drying since in some cases that will help the decorations to stick more firmly.  Dry the clothespins on their sides so you don’t smudge the designs.

Once you and your children have painted and decorated the clothespins and after they’re completely dry, take a piece of ribbon or twine and use the clothespins to clip Valentine’s Day cards to it.  We cut-out the word “LOVE” from a magazine and added it to our ribbon to make it even more festive. 

Our daughter is really enjoying her “ribbon of love” as it hangs over her desk.  I’m thinking of leaving the ribbon up even after Valentine’s Day.  I’ll clip notes and quotes to it for my daughter to read and enjoy.

Send us pics of the clothespin creations you've made and are now using, and we’ll share some on this website.