SHIM + SONS

a robot valentine

Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that is more fun now that I have children. I mean really, the red + pink + hearts + doilies + cupids were a bit too much pre-motherhood. But I also think that Valentine's Day has evolved a bit and is not only for husbands + wives and boyfriends + girlfriends, but really a day to say "hey, I like/love you" to family and friends.

Every year I look forward to making valentines with the boys. We've had fun in the past making fabric heart valentines and paper heart pencil valentines.

A few weeks ago I came across this cute treat transmitters project and after showing it to the boys they were all excited to make them for their classmates. Instead of cutting out the bodies we used black paper bags [from Michaels]. We put a few pieces of candy inside the bag to weigh it down and J made personalized little heart valentines [with a drawing of each of his friends on it] to put inside. I pre-cut all the arms using silver card stock and a circle paper punch. J helped type in each of his classmates names using this barcode font and I printed out little "2myfriend" stickers for j since they were instructed not to personalize the valentines [to make the handout process a little easier for the preschoolers]. 

I also printed out some "from ___" stickers to seal the flap on the bag. The boys punched a few holes on the top of the bag and made antennae out of silver pipe cleaners.

It was fun to see how the boys "decorated" their robots differently. j used some cute eye stickers I picked up in Korea and placed them on the rolos. He knew exactly which ones he was going to give to his best buddies in class. He also mixed it up a bit and used lifesavers for the eyes. J opted to keep his eyes plain and simple.

I was with the boys when they were handing out their robot valentines and they were well-received by all their classmates. And I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with the candy glued on the bag [ha ha]. Of course I felt slightly guilty giving their friends even more candy in their Valentine's Day bags, especially since I am the mother who tosses the candy they receive. So next year I am going to try and go candy-less for their valentines, or maybe just one piece of candy. I LOVE the valentines Erin made with her girls and also Elly's valentines. 

ties for my little valentines

Happy [Lunar] New Year + Valentine's Day! I made some ties for my little valentines last week, just in time for J's music program at school [which by the way, was so fantastic!]. I followed  Purl Bee's little boy's tie pattern which was super easy to follow and came together relatively quickly. I used a crisp cotton lawn fabric I picked up in Korea. The wonderful thing about this project is it does not require a sewing machine, so I was able to do the hand sewing while waiting to pick up the boys after school. The ties were a huge hit with the boys and they have already requested several more to add to their wardrobe. I'm thinking a cute green plaid tie for St. Patrick's Day. For some reason J reminds me of Alex P. Keaton when he is wearing his tie and I am so tempted to get him some penny loafers + a briefcase. Oh, and for the next batch of ties I will make sure to add a little loop on the backside of the tie so the inner tie flap can tuck inside the loop. [Hope that makes sense, in other words, I want to avoid having the skinny tie part flapping around in photographs as demonstrated by exhibit A and exhibit B.]

handmade valentines

I twittered [or is it tweeted?] a few weeks ago about working on a Valentine's Day project. You can see my projects, two simple handmade Valentine's Day cards, over on Brides.com, along with seven other sweet projects. I am planning on making some valentines with the boys this weekend. They are smitten with these fun robot valentines.

Other cute valentine ideas:

+ Suann made some lovely valentine treat bags for her son's classmates.

+ Martha Stewart always has fun + cute valentines crafts.

+ Genius "A Kiss In Your Pocket" flip book by Color Me Katie [via Uniform Natural]

seashells, anyone?

J decided he wants to participate in his school's science fair. I won't lie and say that I was super excited given science was my least favorite subject in school. But I did not want to discourage my future paleontologist so we looked through the list of possible projects and the idea of a sea shell collection peaked our interest. We have sea shells from Thailand, Korea and Hawaii and it seems like a simple enough project for a 1st grader to put together [with a little help from his parents]. We are planning to make a trip to the Oregon Coast to pick up sea shells, but would love to have even more sea shells for his project. If anyone has a few they can spare and would be willing to ship them to us so they would arrive by the 15th, we would greatly appreciate it. You can email me at shimandsons [at] gmail [dot] com. Thank you!!