Valentine's Day "I Love You" Tree

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I'm ridiculously excited about Valentine's Day. I'm lucky though, because R shares in my excitement. He loves any holiday that proves itself with themed activities and fun decorations. It's a sad day at the Dinosaurs And Octopuses's home when the decorations come down. And a happy one when they go up!

We have what we call an "All Seasons Tree" that we decorate for every holiday and season. I've posted about it once before as our Autumn Bucket List Tree. Most recently it has turned into our "I Love You" tree for Valentine's Day.

The activity for this tree is for each of us to come up with 10 different things we love about each member of the family. R will secretly tell me what to write on his daddy's, and he will tell his daddy what to write on mine.  Then we'll read all of the different reasons why we're loved after dinner on Valentine's Day.

You can have one too! They are easy and fun to make and can be customized to your family. 

The tree itself is just a branch in a vase. We change up the branches, vase, and vase filler occasionally. We used white rice for the vase filler this time.

First, I got things ready by cutting out the hearts. I used scrap pieces of cardstock, but construction paper or scrapbook paper would be great too. R helped me pick out the colors and kept me entertained by telling illustrated stories on his easel. I cut out sixty hearts. Twenty for me to write on about R and Kevin, and twenty for each of them to write on. You can adjust this number to whatever you'd like, of course. The cutting didn't take long, even doing it by myself. If you have older children that can help, it would go even faster!

Next, we punched a hole into each heart. We varied the placement of the holes so that the hearts would hang differently.

Then we decorated the hearts. You could do this so many ways. We decorated ours with stickers. Lots of stickers. R loves stickers and I really wanted this project to be enjoyable rather than something that felt like work. He was actually sad when we ran out of hearts to decorate!

Finally, I attached a pipe cleaner to each heart so we could hang them from the tree. I chose pipe cleaners because I wanted to make it super easy to remove and replace the hearts. I used a third of a pipe cleaner to attach each heart.

Now all we have left to do is admire it and occasionally add another reason to the tree.

R loves to ask, "why do you love me?" as he cuddles up with us. He loves hearing all the reasons he's special, and comes up with lots of reasons for why he loves us. I really look forward to hearing what he has to say!

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I've noticed that a couple other bloggers have a similar idea and have a tree of their own! If you'd like more ideas for a Valentine's Day tree, you should check out theirs!

Critters And Crayons made a beautiful tree with family pictures.
Growing A Jeweled Rose did something similar, and hers is perfect for younger children!

Have you been inspired? If you make a tree of your own I'd love to hear about it! 

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