Monday made: Love is...

is...

Patient

Love is ...

...kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is...

... not rude...

... it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it...

...keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always...

... trusts...

... always...

...hopes...

... always...

... perserveres.

Love...

... never fails.

- 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 (NIV)

Junior J and I made these little hearts over the weekend (hubby was on call, so we stayed home and hung out).  I used a saltdough recipe shared by Jean in an issue of WNC parent (You can read the issue here, and the recipe is on page 24), but modified it: 

I had to add another 3 tablespoons of flour to this version to make it harder,
and the dough needs some kneading.  We added a drop of red food colouring to get pink dough!  

Little boy and I mixed it together, and then tried to cut out the shapes.  The whole process was fraught with all sorts of disasters...  Firstly, the dough wasn't tough enough to allow itself to be cut by the cutter (I should have mixed the dough first while the boy napped and should have left it to harden a little), so we grabbed balls of dough and pressed it into the heart cutters (really cheap if you buy them at Phoon Huat!).  Little boy loved stuffing the dough into the cutters, and once he got so excited he fell off the step-stool!  Then half-way through, he decided he needed to pee, and I couldn't carry him down since my hands were all covered in sticky dough.  I managed to get the potty to him but he had a mini-accident on the stool... To add to that, we had a pesky mosquito flying around biting us.  When we were almost done, Junior J decided he really needed to scratch his bites (but he couldn't since his hands will all sticky too), and leaned over on the counter to show me his bites, while squashing a few of the hearts!

A totally messy affair.  :p  But it was rather easy to clean up.  :)

ANYWAY.  Yes, where was I?  Oh, after cutting and baking the hearts for about 2 hours (I also forgot to poke the holes at the top to allow us to thread the ribbons, so I took them out 20 minutes into baking and used a chopstick.), we let them cool and then outlined the heart using pearlescent glitter (little boy squeezed the tubes, and I just rotated the hearts... and the boy did a few for his friends).  The next evening saw me writing the words using puffy paint (both the glitter and paint were from Popular), and the boy and his Papa had a ball of a time using the hair-dryer to heat up the paint to let it puff up (and Junior J decided along the way that his wet hair needed drying as well)!

Have hung these little reminders of how to love each other on the branches that we have on display, along with our CNY rabbits.  :)  I think they're quite apt for Valentine's day, don't you think?  Have you made little reminders of love recently?

Have a blessed V'day! :)