Sunshine Valentines Kid Craft with Free Printable

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The season of all things red and pink, paper doilies and handmade Valentine’s Day cards is upon us! As we have done for the last several years we are working to create our own! To make our designs different than others her friends might receive, this year we took the sunny, happy approach and made sunshine Valentines!

As a mom, you feel like you know your kid pretty well but can always be happily surprised at what they can do that you didn’t know they could. Painting sunshines is that thing for me.

I already knew she’d like to try out painting techniques using different materials so I grabbed a few recycled items that had circular shapes and some of our yellow Deco Art Americana paints and designed a sunshine Valentines message.

You know all know how to make a sunshine right? Press cardboard tube or a egg carton piece into yellow paint and make a circle on the paper.

Next, use the paintbrush to make lines. But did you know that during this step you’re supposed to say “line. line. line. line. line. line” as you paint it? Well in Brielle’s world you do! We did lots of practice sunshines on some large sheets and I was SO impressed at her thought process in doing this design.

Then we moved to the sheets I printed with the Valentine’s Day message. Each time she’d put the paintbrush in the center of the circle and paint outward whichever direction the ray should go. Sounds easy, I know, but I just wasn’t sure if she’d have the coordination to paint different directions as she went around the circle. Did I just underestimate my daughter?

She happily sat and made her sunshines and each time I would tell her how proud I was at her painting skills and how recognizable they were to be suns!

If you’re one of the lucky ones to get her sunshine Valentines, I’m sure you’ll be impressed too!

If you’re curious how well your preschooler would do with this technique, or just want to take the sunny approach this Valentine’s day, feel free to download my free “You are my sunshine” Valentine printable here!

And PLEASE make my day and tag me in a photo if you do use these for your own sunny creations! It’s only February but I’m always looking for more submissions to my annual reader’s feature!

Pst here’s a few more cute Valentine’s designs we made in years past if you need more inspiration! Click on each image to go to the post: