cub scouts fabric love paper Valentine's Day

Valentine Service gift for Cub Scouts

This is the basket my son made for me.

We made these for Cub Scouts on Valentine’s day this year.  We have a boy with diabetes and another with celiac disease so food based activities were out of the question since we didn’t want to leave someone out.  The hearts were made with fabric scraps and the baskets were made with paper plates.  I had seen the heart idea on a pin somewhere, but I didn’t re-pin it myself so I can’t link to the idea- if someone knows what I’m talking about, please let me know where I can find it. 🙂  The link basically said that she had made hearts and hid them around her parent’s house for her father’s birthday.  She gave him a jar and told him every time he found a heart to remember how much she loved him.  I thought this would be a fun idea for the boys to use as a service project for someone in their family.  They made a card for whoever they were doing the service for telling them what they loved about them and explaining the hearts.
* To make the hearts I simply cut out a template from my Cricut (you could easily make your own heart), I used the Plantain Schoolbook cartridge and cut the heart at 3″- I wanted the hearts small since the baskets themselves are pretty small and I wanted to fit at least 5 hearts into the basket.  I cut them out of the fabrics (I cut 4 at a time) using pinking shears so I didn’t have to turn them inside out and they’d still look finished.  I sewed around the border using a 1/4″ seam allowance leaving a small opening for the boys to stuff them with filling.  I gave each of the boys an unsharpened pencil to use to help push the stuffing in, which they got to keep as their valentine from me.  When they finished stuffing their hearts, I sewed the openings shut with my machine.
We made the baskets from paper plates.  I had first seen the idea as a pin from the blog Sara Hearts, but I actually read the idea on another blog (again, I’m a slacker pinner and didn’t re-pin after I read the how-to, but it’s the same idea and I’m pretty sure she linked to Sara’s blog)  I did not follow the directions and made my baskets a different way, I’ll take some pictures tomorrow and show you how I actually did it.
I was really surprised how much ten 8 year old boys enjoyed this activity.  And I know my son at least had a great time hiding the hearts for me.  He was so anxious for me to find them he kept pointing them out to me instead of letting me just come across them naturally. 🙂  I would chalk that up to a good activity. 🙂
I think this would be a fun activity for any day, how fun to leave a hidden gift for a grandma on your next visit?
Have a great Wednesday.
XOXO,
Amy
** ETA** you can find the tutorial for the paper plate baskets here.

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  • Gwen @ Gwenny Penny
    March 8, 2012 at 1:28 am

    Cute project, Amy! I love that the boys had so much fun with this 🙂

  • Anonymous
    March 8, 2012 at 2:18 am

    Very cute, Amy!