READY OR NOT, VALENTINE'S DAY IS MONDAY!

 I was startled today when I realized that Valentine's Day is Monday!  (and today is Thursday!)  Since all of our extended family members live many miles away we will be relying on the U S Postal Service to deliver our Valentines.  That means time is of the essence!  We must finish up our Valentines and pack everything and send it out TOMORROW if we are to have any chance of things arriving on Valentine's Day!  Yikes!

The kiddos got right to work today and in addition to making cards we decided to make salt dough heart magnets and pins.   I thought I would share what we did in case you want to try it.  Everyone had tons of fun with this!

What you'll need:

• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup water
• wooden spoon
• rolling pin
• extra flour
• heart shaped cookie cutters
• magnets
• pin backs
• hot glue
• acrylic paint (red, pink, white, blue, silver)
• toothpick
• paint brush
• acrylic sealer
• wax paper
• cookie sheet

How to make it:

1.  Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
2.  Mix together salt, flour, and water until dough is formed.
3.  Knead the dough on a floured surface until the mixture is elastic and smooth.
4.  Roll the dough out to about 1/4" thick with a rolling pin that has been dusted with flour.
5.  Use different sized heart-shaped cookie cutters to create as many pieces as you like.
6.  Place all hearts onto an ungreased cookie sheet and place into the preheated oven. 
7.  Bake for 2 hours.
8.  Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
9.  Paint with acrylic paints, glitter glue or glitter paint, and spray finished projects with acrylic sealer.
10.  To write words on the hearts, use a toothpick dipped in white paint.

11.  Hot glue a magnet to the back of hearts to hang on fridge, and a pin back to the ones you will use as pins.