Boy-Friendly Valentine Art

My guys like doing all kinds of art and craft projects to go along with the current season or holiday.  Valentine's day, though, has always been challenging, what with all the hearts and pink and stuff.  This seems to be the case more so in recent years.  I don't know... maybe adding a sister to the mix has them drawing gender lines? 

At any rate, I loved how today's project celebrates the season of hearts and love without being frilly, and so did my boys!

First we cut and tore bits of colored tissue paper, ideally into roughly postage-stamp size pieces, but some people liked theirs bigger.

I added a few drops of water to our glue to thin it, and then we painted it onto plain white paper one section at a time, randomly sticking tissue bits down as we went.

When that was completely dry, we cut out as big a heart shape as we could.

Then sponge painted black around the edges.

And finished up with a few black splatters.  I thinned the paint with several drops of water for this step.

Our finished hearts:

I can just imagine how striking these would be in shades of pink and purple.  With maybe a little glitter sprinkled in? Mmm-mm!  Maybe in a year or two!

(Our hearts were inspired by this project)