Valentine’s Day Earrings Service Project

I am excited to share this activity with you, because it was my first ever collaboration! Thank you so much Andi at Hot Pink Pansy Designs for helping me out with this.

This is a super easy craft that my girls LOVED!

Here’s what you need:

• Pink, white and red buttons
• Novelty heart buttons (I found some fantastic ones in the Valentine’s Section at hobby lobby)
• Plain Earring Posts
• Regular tacky glue
• Qtips
• Heart earring boards (print out on cardstock)
• Straight pin

Here’s what you do:

1. Have the girls “Design” several pairs of earrings by pairing plain buttons with the novelty buttons
2. Using a little bit of glue on a QTip, glue your desired buttons together
3. Dip the earring post into a little bit of glue and place on the back of the earring.
4. Let the earrings dry for about 10 minutes
5. Cut out these cute heart earring boards. Puncture the card at the center of each heart with a straight pin and have the girls add their name at the bottom
6. Place your earrings on the card through the holes and let them dry over night

Note: A little bit of tacky glue goes a long way. Although the glue dries clear, it still looks messy if you use too much. I encouraged my girls to use the QTips to better manage the glue flow.

I used this project as a service activity to benefit a Denver-area charity called Project Valentine. The charity gathers donations and assembles gift bags to distribute to cancer patients on Valentine’s Day. I thought these earrings would make such a cute addition to their gift bags.

You can use this activity any way you would like. The girls can make these for their family members, friends, the primary presidency, or you can look into donating them to a cancer treatment center in your area around Valentine’s Day.

My girls loved this activity so much that we are doing them again for a Valentines crafting activity!

My 2011 Goals

I took the opportunity to discuss New Year’s resolutions and goal making with the girls. I found this great online resource that helped me to teach and discuss goal making with a young age group:

http://www.suite101.com/content/goal-setting-lesson-plan-a11204

I used the suggestion of using the chalkboard, dividing it into two sections and had the girls list a wish and a goal. Then, we discussed how some wishes can become goals and others cannot. For instance, wishing for a new baby brother is probably not a reasonable goal; goals have to be something that we work on to improve ourselves… we cannot force goals upon someone else.

After the chalk board discussion, I had one of the older girls read Amy’s Goal from the January 2010 Friend. We talked about how some goals can be huge and sometimes overwhelming to take on, but if we work on our goal a little at a time and break it into smaller steps, almost anything is possible.

Then, I had the girls complete the following worksheet by choosing 2 goals to work on for the year: a personal goal and a spiritual goal. We discussed the basic differences between each. I also went around and helped each of the girls identify obstacles and lay out plans of action as they needed help.

My New Year's Goals Worksheet (undated)

Update

Hi Everyone:

My deepest apologies for not keeping up on this blog! The last 6 months have been crazy. I work full time as a marketing manager AND I started going to school full time pursuing my degree in graphic design. I’ve decided to take my class load back to part time to try to get my life back!

That being said, I hope to add quite a few posts in the coming weeks to catch you up on what we have been doing for our Activity Days here in Denver, Colorado!

I am also teaming with Andi over at www.hotpinkpansy.com for a fun Valentine’s Day Service Activity. Check back for more details soon!

As far as downloading goes, I am going to stay with Google Docs for now. I am taking a web design class this semester, so I hope to use my new found talents to improve this site as the year progresses. If you are having trouble downloading any of the documents, please email me at wactivities@gmail.com. I will be happy to email you the documents directly.

Thanks
Wendy