Valentine craft: tissue paper heart windows

 

I was very inspired by the book “Rose Windows & How to Make Them”, but the projects are too complicated for my daughter just yet. We made a very simplified version of the rose window. It probably took an hour altogether. We colored cardstock with block crayons (2 pieces per window) then cut 2 cardstock circles to make the frame. We then took a square of tissue paper a bit larger than our circle, and brushed a little glue over it. We then applied the tissue hearts we had cut out earlier, and let it dry. Once it was dry we put glue on the circle frames & matched them up with tissue picture in between the 2 frame circles. We took the leftover cardstock that was colored and made small heart shaped windows to hang from the bottom of the circle. We used a hole punch to make a hole at the top, and threaded through a string for hanging in front of the window where the light could shine through & illuminate the hearts. 

  jjj

 

The Happy house: A snail tale for valentines day (week)

 

 

 

Here is a snail story that is perfect for valentines. I adapted it from the Hans Christian Andersen  story so that it would flow better.  This story can open the door to a science lesson about snails, and plants. Burdock is considered a weed, but has tremendous healing properties. It grows just about everywhere. I know it is abundant in my yard. The snail valentine in the picture can be downloaded for free at Zakka Life here. I like the idea of the pop being the shell. It would be nice also to use the idea to draw your own. Enjoy the story.

The Happy House

Out in the garden, and in wild places untouched by human hands grows a lovely plant that some call a weed. This plant has gigantic leaves. They are so big that if one holds it in front of them, it is like a whole apron, and if one holds it over one’s head in rainy weather, it is almost as good as an umbrella, because is so immensely large. This plant is the burdock. The burdock never grows alone, but where there grows one there always grow several, like a great burdock forest. These forests of burdock are of  great delight to the snail, because they love to eat burdock more than anything else. And in former times many people would love to cook those snails in a bit of butter, gobble them up, and say “yum, yum, how delicious”. Because of this they planted many burdock patches to entice the big white snails they loved to eat into coming so that they could catch them & cook them.

Now, there was an old manor-house, where they no longer ate snails, they thought they were quite extinct; but the burdocks were not extinct, they grew and grew all over the walks and all the beds; they could not get control over them – it was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an apple and a plum-tree, or else one never would have thought that it was a garden; all was burdocks, and there lived the two last old, giant, white snails.

They themselves knew not how old they were, but they could remember very well that there had been many more of them; and that for them and theirs the whole burdock forest was planted. They had never been outside of it, but they knew that there was still something more in the world, which was called the manor-house, and that there they were boiled, and then they became black, and were then placed on a silver dish; but what happened further they knew not; nor, did they what it was to be boiled, and to lie on a silver dish, they could not possibly imagine; but it was said to be delightful.Neither the toads, nor the earth-worms, whom they asked about it could give them any information – none of them had been boiled or laid on a silver dish.

Now they lived a very lonely, but happy life; and as they had no children themselves, they had adopted a little common snail, which they brought up as their own.

One day there was a heavy storm of rain.

“Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!” said Father Snail. Then mother said “And now the rain pours right down the stalk! You will see that it will be wet here! I am very happy to think that we have our good house, and the little one has his also! There is more done for us than for all other creatures, sure enough; See how fortunate we are? We are provided with a house from our birth, and the burdock forest is planted for our sakes! I should like to know how far it extends, and what there is outside!”

“There is nothing at all,” said Father Snail. “No place can be better than ours, and I have nothing to wish for.

Mother snail said “I would willingly go to the manorhouse, be boiled, and laid on a silver dish; all our forefathers have been treated so; there is something extraordinary in it, you may be sure!”

The manor-house has most likely fallen to ruin!” said Father Snail. “Or the burdocks have grown up over it, so that they cannot come out. There need not be any hurry to be boiled; but you are always in such a tremendous hurry, and the little one is beginning to be the same.”

You must not scold him,” said Mother Snail. “He creeps so carefully; he brings us much pleasure – and we have nothing but him to live for! But have you not thought of it? Where shall we get a wife for him? Do you not think that there are some of our species far away in the  burdock forest?”

“Black snails, I dare say, there are enough of,” said the old one. “Black snails without a house – but they are so common, and so conceited. But we might ask ants to look out for us; they run to and fro as if they had something to do, and they certainly know of a wife for our little snail!” So they asked the ants.
“I know one, sure enough!” said one of the ants. “She is a queen.”
“That may be perfect for our son,” said the mother, “does she have a house?”
“She has a palace!” said the ant. “The finest ant’s palace, with seven hundred passages!”

“I thank you!” said Mother Snail. “but our son shall not go into an ant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, we shall just ask the gnats. They fly far and wide, in rain and sunshine; they know the whole forest here.

“We have a wife for him,” said the gnats. “At a hundred human paces from here there sits a little snail in her house, on a gooseberry bush; she is quite lonely, and old enough to be married. It is only a hundred human paces!”

“Well, then, let her come to him!” said the old ones. “He has a whole forest of burdocks, she has only a bush!”

And so they went and fetched little Miss Snail. It was a whole week before she arrived; When she did arrive, they could instantly tell she was the same species.

The two young snails were married, and then the marriage was celebrated. All of the creatures from the great burdock forest came to celebrate. The two old, giant, white snails gave the newlywed couple the whole forest of burdocks as a wedding gift, and said – what they had always said – that it was the best in the world; and if they lived honestly and decently, and increased and multiplied, they and their children would too be special enough to go the manor-house, be boiled black, and laid on silver dishes. After the wedding party the old ones crept into their shells, and never more came out. They slept; the young couple governed in the forest, and had a numerous children, but they were never boiled, and never came on the silver dishes; so from this they concluded that the manor-house had fallen to ruins, and that all the men in the world were extinct; and as no one contradicted them, of course it was so. And the rain beat on the dock-leaves to make drum-music for their sake, and the sun shone in order to give the burdock forest a color for their sakes; and they were very happy, and the whole family was happy; for they, indeed were so.