Fun Things To Do On Valentine’s Day For Busy Homeschoolers
Needing some fun things to do on valentine’s day with your family? I have just the thing for you! Fabric flowers! Super easy and fun to be creative with, your kids ages 6 to teenager will enjoy making these together!
Read on my friends read on!
Fun Things To Do On Valentine’s Day
I know it sounds to good to be true but it isn’t! I don’t mean to say that your littles wouldn’t benefit from using different materials or that there wouldn’t be a simple tweak, but yes your 6 year old and your teenager can work on the same project. Yeah!
In this post we are going to talk about:
- Three extra splendiferous benefits to making this hand sewn Valentines day fabric flower
- One simple tweak for the younger kids
- And we learn how to sew the flowers themselves using the gathering stitch
What To Do With Left Over Fabric
What do we do with left over fabric? We don’t want to waste it, but what do you do with the pieces that are to small for most other projects?
Make Fabric flowers! And since we are in another season of Valentine’s day we can make them into handmade Valentine’s day decorations!
What To Do For Handicraft Lessons?
I understand, there are so many lessons to prepare, and a feast of subjects to enrich your children with that there is no room left in you to plan handicraft lessons on top of everything else.
Today’s tutorial is the perfect solution! All you need is scrap fabric, needle, thread, scissors, and sticks
Making these hand sewn fabric flowers are not hard and they are a quick project for a nice easy win for your family!
How To Make Valentines Day Special
In-between the whining and dragging of feet for my children to do their chores, they still have a sense of accomplishment and pride in their work.
This handicraft project they will also find a sense of pride and accomplishment. Each year you bring down the Valentine’s day box the pleasant memory will be brought back, year after year. It really is something to treasure. Yes I speak from many years of experience!
The One Small Tweak For Younger Sewers
Instead of using cotton or tulle fabric for your younger children to sew, use felt instead. That’s it. Process is the same. Felt is much easier for small hands to use.
Supplies For the
- Scrap fabric that will work for Valentine’s day, felt for younger children. Tulle is very pretty to use as well
- Fabric scissors
- Needle
- Thread
- Glue gun
- One stick per flower you make
Fun Things To Do On Valentine’s Day: Fabric Flower DIY
For this tutorial we only need to learn how to sew one basic hand sewn stitch, drum roll please…gathering stitch!
As the name suggests you use this stitch to gather the fabric together.
Step 1 Prep
First you must pick the fabric and the height of the flower. Mine was around an inch or so.
Cut out the fabric twice the height you want the flower to end up. So for my flower I cut it 2″ to create the 1″ finished flower.
The length should be at least a foot. The longer the more lawyers there will be, the shorter the less layers.
Fold it in half.
Step 2 Gathering stitch
Pull the needle through from back to front.
If you read my tutorial on the running stitch, then it’s basically the running stitch but pulling the stitches tight.
If you have not read my tutorial then continue.
Moving to the left, move your needle down, then up, then down, and up, about 3-4 times. Pull the needle all the way through until the stitches “gather” the fabric close together.
Keep going until you reach the end. Pull tightly but not so tight the thread breaks.
Step 3 Finish the flower
The edge you just finished needs to roll all the way to the other side. Roll over just a little bit. Sew a few stitches criss crossing the bottom until it feels secure about 4 or so times. Roll a bit more and sew this part down at the bottom of the flower, again 4 or so times.
Keep going until you reach the other side. Knot.
Glue onto a stick. All done!
Note: if you are using tulle, you can use the gathering stitch to gather these edges for a more clean look, but it is optional.
Different fabrics can come together to make a lovely boutique!
Other Fun Things To Do On Valentine’s Day
Now do you understand how this hand sewn fabric flower can be made with a 6 year old and a teenager? So simple it is genius! Way yes I am modest, thanks for asking. LOL!
Not only that but you have used leftover fabric to create a lovely Valentine’s day decoration during handicraft lessons, with multiple ages, and a tutorial for the gathering stitch that easily makes lovely fabric flowers!
Phew that was a lot in one blog post!
But don’t stop there I have many other tutorials and helpful tips for Valentine’s day crafts and other handicrafts you can use for your handicraft lesson.
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