I don’t have strong feelings about Valentine’s Day, but I do love v-themed crafts. Maybe because of the limited palette: you can pretty much stick to red, white, and pink, toss in some hearts, and see where that takes you. Last year we made a supercool paper heart bunting, which I cannot currently find. Today I thought we’d try making play-dough heart ornaments.

Here’s how:

1. Make play-dough. Try not to notice that much of the flour is coating the table/floor/children instead of being mixed into the dough.

2. Add lavender or chamomile essential oil, for a calming effect. (You will thank me later.)

3. Shape dough into hearts. Or balls. Or blobs with a pointy end.

4. Optimistically poke holes through shapes, to provide a place to loop string through later.

5. Bake.

6. Bake longer.
 

Consider installing an oven specifically devoted to this craft, in case you want to bake anything else ever.

7. Continue baking for hours and hours until the hearts burst and still-wet play-dough oozes, bubbling, out of the crusty exteriors. Admit defeat and turn off oven, live to bake another day.
 

Sadie, who is three, expresses her feelings about this project. (Really she loved it and was thrilled to enhance the final product with toothpicks.)

8. Consider whether construction paper might be a better choice for future crafts.

(There are real directions for beautiful play-dough heart ornaments here.)