DIY Dried Beans Valentine's Cards

A crafty way for little ones to use dried beans to create Valentine's cards with a homemade touch!

Valentine's Day is just around the corner! And you know we love all the holidays in this household. The bigger the girls get, the more fun the holidays become. I love being able to involve them in the festivities, and challenging myself to find activities for them to partake in for their age level. So earlier this week, I thought it would be fun for the girls to craft their own Valentine's cards to share with their neighbors.

I opted for dried beans and some paint to give each girl the chance to channel their creativity. It also provided a way for them to practice fine motor skills as they placed each bean and eventually painted them. Quinn's concentration face (a few photos below) is my very favorite!

If you're looking for a way to involve your children with a Valentine's-themed craft, this is a fun and inexpensive way to do so! Even if you don't need cards, this can just be a busy activity that flows nicely with the upcoming holiday.

The supplies are minimal, and you most likely have everything you need already!

What You'll Need

Dried beans - we used lima beans and navy beans
Acrylic paint in various colors - we used the following:

Crimson
Light Pink
Fuchsia
Pink
Pink Blast

Paint brushes (you could also use q-tips)
Cardstock
Heart-shaped stencil (I just used a cookie cutter!)
Clear liquid glue
Glue stick

What You'll Do

Trace and cut out your hearts on cardstock.
Spread glue on small sections of the heart, and place beans together. Repeat this until the entire heart is covered.
Allow the glue to dry and the beans to settle. We waited several hours, starting the gluing in the morning and painting in the late afternoon.
Use a paper plate to put little blots of paint out. Paint away, then let dry for a couple hours or so.
While the paint is drying, use your heart-shaped stencil to cut our more hearts from your cardstock. We used pink cardstock for this part.
Then write out a little Valentine's note.

"Hope you've BEAN well! Happy Valentine's"
"It's BEAN awhile! Happy Valentine's!"
"You've BEAN on my mind! Happy Valentine's!"

Once the paint has dried, use the glue stick to attach the Valentine's note to the back of the dried beans card.
And that's it! Now deliver or display.

There are so many different ways you can go about making these sweet little cards. Maybe you use a different stencil shape or colors. We loved the classic look of the heart and playing on use of our dried beans to come up with a Valentine's note.

Once our craft was dried, we loaded the cards up with little packages of our favorite iced sugar cookies and walked the neighborhood to deliver holiday treats to our neighbors.