I "Heart" Bead Crafts

Valentine's Day is one of the only holidays I can get away with encouraging my boys to use pink and purple beads to make something.

And I have a lot of "girl colored" beads (as Mr. One would call them)...

Here is a simple craft we worked on together for Valentine's Day.

You will need:

Valentine colored tri beads (we used pinks, purples and reds)
pipe cleaner (we used red)

Directions:

I had Mr. One sort our bead stash, pulling out the appropriate colors for our project and placing them on a large tray, then putting the other colors in an ice cube tray.

When we had a good pile of the beads we wanted, I had the boys string them onto the pipe cleaner, leaving approximately 1 inch of pipe cleaner exposed on both ends.

My four-year-old could do this independently.  I sat with my two-year-old and had him pick up the beads, one at a time, and we strung them together.  He actually got pretty good at lining up the little hole onto the end of the pipe cleaner and pushing it down.

After the beads were on, I bent the pipe cleaner into a heart shape, beginning and ending the heart at the far end of one of the top curves.  I then twisted the ends together and made a loop, twisting the ends again.  I liked the look of the hearts hanging at an angle.

Go get out your bead stash and have some fun!