valentine’s day – Page 4

small fry favorite love songs

We all have vivid memories of our parents singing to us. For Emily, her dad worked around the clock as a doctor, but whenever he could he’d pull out his guitar and sing “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac by her bedside. In that instant the world felt so safe and calm, and watching his tan hands strum and pick the song out a million times over just solidified her love of music at an early age. For Nicole, her sweet daddy passed away when she was just a teenager, and no matter how dark the days felt, her mom would sing “I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills, I love the flowers, I love the daffodils” and she was immediately reminded of all the beautiful things of this world. That song perhaps shaped her into the eternal optimist that we know and love to this very day. Jenna’s earliest memories are dancing with her dad by their record player to the Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Elvis. You’d think you couldn’t fit all that soul into such a tiny girl, but she carried it with her and loves and sings along with her dad even still. (We attribute her killer dance moves to this education as well.) We are all tied to our parents even tighter because of that shared love of music, and we hope to pass it to our own kids!

love songs, play list, i tunes, brooke white, dixie chicks, bob dylan, cat powers

Having our own children deepened our love and respect for our parents, and it’s even more so such an extension of our love for our spouses! That moment when you sing one of “your” love songs to your little one it’s sort of this magical full circle moment. It represents a time where you held hands and kissed through dates, movies, concerts, long drives, all the while they were just a dream in our heads. We wondered what they might look like, or funny things they might say, and then fast forward and there we are rocking them to sleep, singing those very songs. Here is a list of the ones we love to sing with our little families that no matter how many times brings a lump to our throat, tears to our eyes, and make our hearts feel like they just might burst.

Take a listen, we hope you enjoy!

a wearable valentine + honest co.

We’re so thrilled to be guest posting today on the Honest Co.‘s blog Honestly! Honest was founded only a year ago by Jessica Alba and Christopher Gavigan based on their desire to make eco-friendly products more accessible to families. From biodegradable wipes and fashion-forward plant-based diapers, to eco-friendly detergents and cleaning supplies they are committed to this cause and we are huge fans! Here’s some of our favorite Honest products:

swim diaper and bottles for baby // dish brush, lip balm, laundry pods and bug spray for the whole family.

Head to Honestly to see what we cooked up with them! In summary it’s a quick little project that uses old sweatshirts we had on hand and turns them into a personalized wearable Valentine! We had our kids draw their own heart shape and used it as a template, and you can read all about the steps, ways to help your smallest crafters, a list of supplies we used and even more ideas for personalizing your top o.

Thanks for having us, Honest!

heart installation wall

As you’ve probably gathered over the last few months, we are all about holiday decor that costs little to nothing. Call us cheap, but it lets us get creative, and then feel guilt-free when want to chuck it and make something new the following year! This fun little project is a great way to get your kids involved and thinking about their loved ones this month. Here’s what we did:

Using the free printable download below, we printed off a few pages of the small, medium, and large hearts. Cut them out, and spend some time with your kiddo talking about things they love. Their answers are so sweet, and sometimes surprising as you saw in yesterday’s film! Fill out the hearts, and tape right up to the wall! It will be an awesome little art installation for the month and a good reminder of all the wonderful people and things in our lives. Add a strand of Maypole felt balls and you’re set for decor!

PREVIEW OF DOWNLOAD//

Are you making Small Fry projects? We’d love to see! Tag us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (@smallfryblog & #smallfryblog) so we can check it out and feature you!

Small Fry Films: Valentine’s Day

Today’s film, brought to life by the genius Jenner Brown of Lumineux Films, was especially lovely for us to make, check out why…

Thank you to the Crepe Co. (the most awesome creperie located in Provo, UT — try the French Kiss crepe and return and report!) for providing us with the beautiful space to hold our interviews. And to all our twenty-six amazing interviewees and their supportive mothers, you’re all stars!

You can see all of our Small Fry + Lumineux films here. And here’s our YouTube channel as well!

love lunch

Today’s guest project is an awesome printable for darling Valentine’s themed lunch sacks, brought to you by Lindsey Marlor of Pillow Thought!

Lindsay says: “I’m a creative and a photo obsessed mom, who loves sharing everything from fashion to fun pieces from our life! I recently decided to phase out my photography business and focus solely on Pillow Thought. I couldn’t be happier with that decision and I love what I do!”

Directions for printing: (these are important)

Make sure you change your printers paper settings to custom, if you are printing more than one- each time you go to print you will have to make sure you change it to custom <each time>. To save time, I went ahead and named my custom size to Brown Lunch Sack.

The dimensions for the brown sacks should be 5.15 x 10.75 in. I use a MAC and just used the preview program to print them in.

//to prevent paper jamming, which is more likely to happen when printing on the sacks… Use either washi tape or other tape that easily peels off without tearing the paper.Put the sack in the printer just like the image shows, and you may have to help guide the sack through just to make sure it grabs a hold of it.

love legs

We’re getting ready for Valentine’s Day with our kids and have a few easy projects for you over the next couple weeks! Since we had never seen this idea done before, we called upon our friend and tie-dye expert, Kylie for some back up! She shares her super cool upcycling and refashioning projects via her Instagram @warpaintweekend.

Kylie figured out an awesome technique, and here’s how you can get your own heart shaped tie-dye leggings just in time for V-Day.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Cotton leggings (all the ones we’ve used are $3.88 at Wal-Mart!), rubber bands, a washable marker, gloves, and bleach or dye depending on the look you’re going for.
Step One:

Take the leggings and take them from their normal hip-to-hip fold, and fold them front to back so the fold goes right through the center of the knee.

Step Two:

Now that there is a fold down the center of the knee draw half a heart dotted line going outward.

Step Three:

Now that you have your half heart in a dotted line, grab the fabric at the dots and gather it together like an accordion. Once you’ve scrunched the whole half heart rubber band it at the base. Wrap it as tight as you can so the dye and bleach don’t leak through.

Step Four:

Two get the illusion of concentric hearts going outward from the knee rubber band the design all the way up the leg stopping at the thighs. Rubber band as often or as few as you’d like!

Step Five: Now your leggings are ready to be bleached or dyed! For these pairs we are showing the bleaching technique, which is great for darker hued leggings. If you have white leggings, Rit dye will do the job perfectly!

Step Six: Put a cup of bleach into a high walled pot, or sink. Saturate the leggings to the desired effect and let it sit. Once they look the right shade, using rubber gloves, rinse them out in the sink. They’ll need to dry so we set them on top of a cookie cooling rack over a regular sheet pan to catch any bleach drippings.

Step Seven: Once they’re rinsed and dry, you can wash and dry them sink just like normal. You should have an awesome tie-dy heart effect!

As always, if you do a Small Fry project we want to see your results! Post them to our Facebook page, or use the #smallfrythreads hash tag and mention (@smallfryblog) so we can see your awesome results via Twitter or Instagram.

Copelin is wearing Freshly Picked moccasins, American Apparel tee, and Gap sweater.