stepping back...

 Handmade Valentine's Day cards to be made for each student in Ella's K class...this was her homework assignment for 2 nights.  I was excited.  I love doing crafts with the kids.  We threw around a couple of ideas and I found this cute idea of using playing cards as the cards and just stamping a simple note on it.  This was perfect because I knew we had a couple of decks missing a couple of cards and Ella liked the idea also.  Since we didn't have a deck of cards with the appropriate Valentine's Day red backing, I decided to have her mount the cards to cardstock and then decorate the other side.  Easy enough, right?

 After about the 7th or 8th one Ella was over it and we hadn't even gotten to the decorating the other side.

 We moved on to decorating the other side of the ones she had mounted.  Thumbprint hearts and printing the recipients name was all we had planned.  She shot my ideas down and I was especially bummed when she didn't want to sew and X though a fabric heart.  As her enthusiasm decreased, so did the number of great ideas I had for her cards...a heart shaped folded envelope, stamping, sewing...we needed to keep it simple if we were going to make 26.

 Julian of course wanted to join in.  He didn't get the concept of which side of the playing card was supposed to be facing up.  No worries... daddy and grandma won't care what the card looks like...even if it has a Hawaiian Air playing card glued on one side.

 Six were completed the first night, leaving 20 for the second.  I was kicking myself last night when she was trying to finish the rest.  I was really tempted to just finish them myself, but I had to remind myself of the lesson she was learning.  Don't procrastinate (like mama).  She wasted so much time complaining about not wanting to finish and then finally in the last 10 minutes she made about 10 in a row, no problem.  Whew!!

 It was really hard for me having to step back and let her work it out herself.  It was even harder letting her go with her idea for the cards.  Looking at them after they were completed, I realized what a great job she had done.  They are so cute.  No two look alike.

I love that she had an idea, she went with it and completed it all by herself (even though she complained about it).