Get some colourful paper that your child can cut up. They can also use tissue paper, color cellophane, or shiny wrapping paper. Put some of the scraps into a plastic sandwich bag, but don’t overfill it. Gather the bag in the middle and fold a pipe cleaner in half and twist it. This is the body of your butterfly. Twist the ends to create antenna.

Cut a 12 inch piece of yarn and tie a knot in it. Place that at the square end of the fabric. Fold the felt over the yarn and glue it down. When dried, turn it over and glue scraps of felt or other accessories to the front of the banner. Let them make flowers, butterflies, or whatever else their little hands can produce.

Guilt is a common emotion that can be uncomfortable to deal with. It can also make you less productive both at home and at work. Here are some ways that you can deal with working mommy guilt if you’re facing this problem.

• Set your priorities to what works for you and your family.  Say for example, your child has an important activity that you’d like to attend and your boss asks you to stay late, don’t be afraid to tell them “no” if this is a top priority for you.  It may help to discuss with your boss early on what is and isn’t suitable for you both this way there are no surprises for anyone involved.
• Write down the reasons why you work outside of the home. You may need to work to help keep your home, you may love your job, or you may have started working when your children all started school. If your reasons for working have changed, don’t be afraid to make changes to your schedule or stop working altogether.
• Realize that you’re not Superwoman. It’s impractical to think that you can continue to do all of the things you did before you began working outside of the home as well as take care of your home. Working too hard will only result in your becoming burned out. Delegate what you can and then do what is left.
• Give yourself a break. Your house doesn’t have to be spotless. Reduce your standards a little bit and you’ll be able to breathe a little easier.
• Take care of yourself. This may seem like a strange statement when you already feel guilty, but if you don’t take care of yourself you can’t take care of others or do the things you need to do.
• When you start to feel guilty, look at your circumstances and identify what the real problem is. What is it that’s causing you to feel guilty? After you’ve identified the problem you can decide how to best handle it.

If you’re beginning to feel guilty about the amount of time you’re spending away from your children, try to fit in some quality time together.  Quality time is more important than simply spending lots of time together.  And you don’t have to do anything fancy either, your children may simply want to snuggle and read books all day – keep in mind that sometimes quality time is more important than the quantity of time you spend together.  We all struggle with mommy guilt from time to time but ultimately you want the best for your children and keeping this in mind will help you positively deal with this guilt.

Let’s start with the cookies. For kids, baking is fun. It is a way for them to help out in the kitchen and learn love cooking. The freezer section of the grocery store has several flavors of cookies. Rolled dough is good to use and eliminates cleanup hassles after the cookies are made.

Take a roll of refrigerated dough and roll it out on a non-stick surface. Add a touch of flour to the rolling pin before you try to roll the dough or it will stick. Younger kids may find it easier to roll the dough out with a plastic rolling pin because they are not as heavy as the wooden ones.

Heart shaped cookie cutters will turn regular sugar, peanut butter, and chocolate chip cookies into creations of love. Kids don’t only like hearts. Let them experiment with other shapes in the cookie cutter arsenal if they want to. They can even design shapes of their own with the dough pieces that are too small to cut.

Cupcakes are much the same way but it takes a bit more preparation. To make it easy, use a box cake mix instead of mixing everything from scratch. Remind your kids that if you are adding egg that they can’t dip a finger in because of the possibility of salmonella poisoning.

The kids can choose to use cupcake cups that are decorated for the holiday or spoon them directly into the muffin pan. Mini muffin pans create bite size cupcakes for the family to enjoy after dinner. If you have a window in the oven, kids will camp out and watch the cupcakes bake just like a television show.

Decorate those cupcakes with creamy icing. White icing can be turned into pink with a bit of red food coloring. Kids will be amazed by this as the white icing changes colors. For an extra special touch, add candy sprinkles or cinnamon red hot candies. It will be hard to keep the kids from eating up all the ingredients as they bake. It may be hard to keep you from sneaking that spoonful of icing when you should be adding it to the cupcakes too so be warned.

Sweets are fun to make and even more fun to eat. Cookies and cupcakes get a nice makeover on Valentine’s Day to help reflect the good feelings of the holiday as well as create great family togetherness.

Make your own pizza. The kids can choose the toppings and fix them up into little bowls so that they are easier to put on the pizza. Parents can shape the dough into a heart when it is ready for toppings. To get the entire family involved, each person can create a personal pizza for themselves with their favorite toppings. Add a salad and you have a perfect Valentine’s Day meal.

Anything that you can shape can become a Valentine’s Day meal centerpiece. Instead of a loaf pan, put that meatloaf into a heart shaped pan. Let the kids use ketchup to write a loving message on the meatloaf before you bake it.

Casseroles for dinner are typical but on Valentine’s Day, we can take some time to give it a unique touch. Parents can use kitchen shears to cut raw chicken breasts into heart like shapes for the casserole. Veggie casseroles are easier to shape and kids can do it with a butter knife.

For Valentine’s Day, the drinks are on the kids. Red Kool-Aid is a great choice. Let the kids mix it up. To avoid all of the sweetness, use Splenda instead of pure cane sugar. You can also make a Valentine’s Day punch. You can find many punch recipes online and in cookbooks at your local library. If your kids are really creative, they can use heart-shaped ice molds to fashion festive ice cubes to keep their drinks cool and refreshing.

This special dinner takes planning. You and your kids can grocery shop together the week before to find all the necessary ingredients and utensils to make Valentine’s Day a success. You may have to visit a few stores to find the ice molds or non-stick pans for the meals. While you’re at it, you may find some other things that could make your meal more festive on Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day takes on new meaning when you have kids. They see each event with new eyes and Valentine’s Day is no different. Take the opportunity to get them interested in cooking and begin new family traditions that they look forward to participating in together each year.

For the youngest kids, cards made of felt are easy to create. All you need are some pieces of felt, glue sticks, and foam letters. Children will need your help spelling out the love-filled message but even misspellings are an expression of love. Felt cards can be hand delivered without the need for an envelope.

What is one of the biggest canvases in the house? You guessed it, the refrigerator. Toy stores sell those magnetic letters and shapes that are used on the refrigerator to teach spelling and sentence formation. Let the kids create a card that can be enjoyed for more than just the holiday with tons of magnetic letters. Everyone that comes in the kitchen can see their testament of love for Mom and Dad.

Love is not just a word, it is a declaration. In medieval times, declarations were written on scrolls and read to everyone in the town. Kids can do the same for mom and dad. Pre-printed scrolls are available where kids can write in the name of mom and dad and sign their own name at the bottom.

If they want to make their own scrolls at home all they’ll need is a long sheet of paper, glue, and two paper towel rolls. The paper towel rolls will act like the rollers for the scroll. The kids can decorate the scroll card in any way with their own special message. The top and the bottom edges of the paper are then glued to a paper towel roll. After the glue dries, roll the scroll up and tie it closed with a decorative ribbon.

Through the ages, poems have always said what the heart was feeling. Kids learn how to construct poems in school. Encourage them to express their love with words. You’ll be tickled and brought to tears by some of the messages they come up with. Let them paste their poems into a homemade card or fold the poem in half and let it become the card all of it’s own.

Older kids can use the wonders of technology to create a unique card on the computer. Card programs allow the user to use any font, color, and style they want. The cards can be blank or come complete with sayings. On the back, the kids can even put their signature as the creator of the card just like a Hallmark.

Kids are always on the lookout for new ways to say something nice to their parents. These ideas will get them started. If you want a new twist on the Valentine’s Day card for kids to give to their parents, definitely try some of the ideas mentioned above.

Everyone loves getting mail. I visit the mailbox each day with expectation of what may be inside. Your kids can give their classmates the same feeling with a mailbox Valentine’s Day card.

Small craft boxes can be covered with white paper to resemble a mailbox. Kids can paste X’s and O’s and hearts to the outside. Inside the mailbox put a homemade card that says something that your child likes about each of them even if it is only the color of their shirt. Add a small treat inside the mailbox to put an even bigger smile on the children’s faces.

Stickers decorate cards just as well as drawings. Using scissors that create decorative edges, cut hearts and other shapes out of cardstock paper. The shapes can be pasted on a larger piece of cardstock and given that special touch using stickers. Be sure that your child doesn’t forget to write the name of each child on the card. He or she can even make one for their teacher.

Send each child in his class a teddy bear gram. Small Valentine’s bears can be purchased at the dollar store. They have bears with clear plastic slots on the front for a wallet size picture. Instead of a picture slip a folded Valentine’s Day message in the pocket. In addition to the friendly message, each child gets a teddy bear to love.

All kids like to get chocolate on Valentine’s Day. Wrap several candy kisses in aluminum foil and shape it like one giant chocolate kiss. Write a note for each classmate on a long slip of paper and roll it up. Attach one end of the paper to the top of the foil kiss. If you’re short on time or your child has a large class, the messages can all be the same to remove the need to uniquely address each giant kiss. Kids can write something cute on the paper and sign their name.

Traditional cards are okay for classmates, but if your child has an imaginative mind, let them exercise it with these ideas. Make Valentine’s Day in the classroom exciting and new.