This month’s craft challenge from Highlights magazine was very open-ended: simply to make something from paper hearts!

I set Travis up with multiple crafting supplies, including poster board to use as a background, pre-cut paper hearts from a Valentine’s Day kit, pink and red construction paper, and red craft foam.

Seeing two hearts touch tip-to-tip helped him get started. He declared that it looked like a fairy! So he glued down these fairy wings, and soon had the idea to add a third heart as the head.

I showed him how to fold a piece of construction paper in half and cut along a provided line, which then opened up into a full heart. Neat!

Smaller hearts cut from foam became the eyes. We also had little hearts that opened up into a 3-D shape, and these made perfect feet.

He was so proud of this little fairy, and the creative juices had just begun flowing.

Soon he was gluing small hearts to bigger ones, and drawing hearts free-hand with a marker quite proudly.

It’s the first time I’ve seen him draw a heart without tracing along a line – perfect timing for Valentine’s Day!

His final creation was a heart-faced vampire with fangs and legs cut from craft foam. This deviated from the initial challenge to craft only from paper hearts, but I was so proud of his creativity!