"Love" Activity Day Crafts and Chocolate Rice Krispy Hearts

It was my turn to do activity day this week.  I decided since we are celebrating Valentine's Day on Monday, we should do some fun crafts and eat an amazing heart dipped chocolate sweet!  It took me a couple days to prepare for my activity. Thankfully, I got some help from my hubby, nephew Justin, and Justin's girlfriend Kelli to help me prep for my activity on Tuesday.  I tend to have a problem of thinking 'big' on my ideas and kick myself later when I find out how much work needs to be done to accomplish the things, doh!   


First of all, we made the YUMMY Valentine's Day themed treats.  I thought about the girls decorating sugar cookies, but felt bored with that idea.  Instead, I came up with a great idea of chocolate dipped rice krispy treats!  It turned out way better than I thought it would! Yay!  So you wanna know how I made them?  Here is the recipe below...

Chocolate Dipped Heart Rice Krispy Treats

6 cups of rice krispies

4 T( 1/4 c)  butter

1 bag of miniature marshmallows

heart shaped cookie cutter

cake sprinkles

sucker sticks or popsicle sticks

butter cooking spray

wax paper

Melt butter and marshmallows in a large pan.  Add rice krispy cereal and stir together well.  They will be gooey rice krispies, which is the only way to eat them in our household.  Remove from heat spray cooking spray on your clean hands.  Make sure you have another person helping you make these treats because the cereal mixture cools quickly and will be hard to mold while doing it alone!  Spoonful the krispy treat into the heart cookie cutter on wax paper.  Remove the cookie cutter and add the stick.  Gently place the stick in the heart shaped krispy mixture and add a spoonful on top of the stick gently molding it together pressing lightly.  Allow them to cool for a few minutes.  Once they are solid and secure on the stick start dipping them into chocolate. 

Melted Chocolate 

1 cup of chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

4 T. of butter

2-3 T of milk

Cut the butter into tiny pieces.  Add chocolate chips and butter in a microwave safe bowl.  Heat 30 seconds and stir.  Repeat heat and stir steps until the chocolate is completely melted.

Add milk and stir well.  We found that adding some milk will stretch out the mixture and will be easier to dip/ brush onto the krispy treats.  We used a pastry brush to coat the chocolate on the heart shaped krispy treats.  Then added some sprinkles and set them on wax paper to cool. We kept these treats in the refrigerator to make sure the chocolate stayed solid.  They were so gooooood!  We would like to try different variations such as using other holiday molds for Easter, Halloween, Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, etc.

As for my first craft, I made some adorable heart rings as a gift from me for my activity day girls.  They were a total hit!  The girl's absolutely loved them and cannot wait to wear them to school on Valentine's Day!  In fact, my youngest daughter wore them to school the next day! They were pretty simple to make for me considering that I am an inexperienced sewer! This project took me a couple hours of tracing, cutting, painting, and stitching the cute homemade Valentine's rings.   I got this lovely idea from Red Bird Crafts.

Felt and Button Heart Rings

 Wooden Heart Rings

Heart Rings

Thread red, pink, white from Walmart

Paint red and pink

Wood hearts (I got them at Robert's Craft)

Felt red, pink, and white from Walmart

1/4" flat elastic (black or white)

heart shaped buttons (red, pink, and white)

Other supplies: drill, scissors, needle, and a heart shaped stencil.

I measured my girl's fingers with the elastic (cutting them out larger than what I measured so I could sew the piece together by hand).   Since I bought white elastic, I used either red or pink thread to sew it together.  For the wooden hearts, drill two small holes (like button holes for stitching), then paint the hearts red or pink.  Once the wooden hearts are dry sew the wooden heart with some thread like you were sewing a button onto the felt elastic.  As for the felt heart rings, I traced a couple different sizes of hearts using a stencil (you can easily draw your own heart patterns by hand).   I traced the hearts on the felt material and cut them out with scissors.  You can design them however you like using one heart with a button or doing a couple different shaped hearts as well as the button.   Sew them all together on the elastic.  

During activity day, the girls and I made some homemade thumb print "love bugs" Valentine's Day cards, which I got this idea from Sweet and Lovely Crafts.

Thumb Print Love Bugs Card

red paint

black marker or pen

 googly eyes

card-stock paper (red, white, and black)

ribbon (red or polka dot like a lady bug)

Other supplies: paper hole punch, glue, scissors, and thread.

Directions for the heart card:  Do the child's thumb print first so that it will have time to dry.  I liked using white paper for the thumb prints.  Next, trace three hearts using a heart stencil or draw a heart pattern.  I used three different colored papers.  Use the hole punch on the top of the heart.  Cut some ribbon and tie a lovely bow through the three hearts.  When the painted thumb print is dry, glue some googly eyes on, draw a mouth, nose, bug legs, etc or draw the "love bug" however your heart desires!  On the back or front of the red and white heart papers is where the kids could write a little Happy Valentine's day or love note! 

These are my cards, which I created using my daughter's thumb prints!

The activity day girls free styled their cards using hearts and scrap pieces of papers.  Here are some examples of what my girls did.  Sooo cute, eh?  They had a lot of fun making them!