The month of love is upon us! I don’t get too worked up about the romantic side of Valentine’s Day since I mostly feel like it’s a “Hallmark Holiday” haha. But I do love extra reasons to make the people I love feel special! Especially my kiddos. So we went all out for our Valentine’s Day craft this year 🙂

The Valentine’s Day craft we decided to go with works around a Cupid theme. Each of my little Valentine’s got their own bow, quiver, and set of arrows. They turned out so adorable, and could easily be made into holiday decor! 

One of my favorite things about this particular craft was that I could easily adapt it to suit my daughter OR my son. When I think of a typical Valentine’s Day craft, there’s usually a lot of pink, hearts, and frill involved. J doesn’t really care either way yet, but for older boys who might not be into pink, this craft is perfect!

There are three parts to this– the arrows, bows, and quivers. I’ll walk you through the steps we took for all three!

Cupid’s Arrows

What you’ll need:

• Skewers or dowel rods (dowel rods will be sturdier)
• Hot glue gun
• Sturdy card stock for the heart tips and fletchings (preferably different patterns or colors for each)
• Paint– we used gold glitter for one and white for the other

Making the arrows:

1. First things first, plug in your glue gun to let it heat up. Basically the craft equivalent of “preheat your oven” haha!

2. Paint the dowel rods and set them aside to dry.

3. Draw and cut out your hearts and fletchings. You’ll need 2 hearts and 2-4 fletchings for each arrow. If the cardstock is pretty sturdy, 2 fletchings should be sufficient. Otherwise you’ll want the 4 to double up.

4. Using your glue gun, attach the tips of the hearts together. This way you can see how they line up and if anything needs to be trimmed.

5. Now glue the dowel rod to the top of the hearts, and glue both wide ends together.

6. For the fletchings, attach them back to back if using 4, so that you have 2 thicker pieces.

7. Cut a line across the middle of the dowel rod end, parallel to the heart. This way when its upright in the bow, the heart will be displayed.

8. Put the arrow on a table so you can see how it lays flat with the heart.

9. Glue the fletchings at upright angles, above the cut out line so that they don’t interfere with the string when put with the bow.

Cupid’s Bow

What you’ll need:

• Flat plastic hangers
• Red ribbon, fabric, tape, etc. I’m using streamers from J’s birthday haha
• Mod podge or glue gun– I ended up using both
• String, yarn, twine (we’re using twine), or rubber bands 

Making the Bow:

1. First, if you feel that you can safely remove the hook from the hanger, that will make it look more “authentic”. Don’t do this with a hanger that has a wire hook though. My fiancé cut it off for me and got himself with the razor when it slid off the wire ? The all plastic one was easy enough, but it really wouldn’t be a huge deal to just leave it on either. Sometimes crafting can get a bit insane– stay safe out there y’all!

2. Now, wrap the ends of the hanger with small pieces of whatever material you’re using. This way it’s all covered up and more cohesive looking once you wrap the rest of it.

3. Yep, you guessed it! Then you wrap the rest of it. Periodically put dabs of hot glue in places, especially around curvier areas. I also had to fold the material to get it at the right angle to cover some of the curves as well.

4. If there are any spots sticking up once it’s all covered, mod podge those suckers down and let dry.

5. Next, take your string and hot glue it to an end. Put a little line of glue along the area you want covered, and wrap the string around tightly. I put another line of glue over that and wrapped it a second time, but do whatever looks good to you!

6. Staying with the same string, bring it all the way across to the other end and hold with your finger. Then pull it out slightly to get that draw back effect for the arrow. I layed an arrow against it while doing this to get a good gauge of how long to leave it.

7. Without losing length for your draw, glue the string to the other end of the bow. Do the same as you did for the other side. To finish, put a little glue dab at the end of the wrapped area and tuck the end of your string in.

Paper Towel Roll Quiver

What you’ll need:

• Paper Towel Roll
• Red paint
• Lace
• Red or gold paper heart
• Hot glue gun
• Red string for shoulder

Making the paper towel quiver:

1. For Lulu’s quiver, we used an empty paper towel roll. We started by painting all of it red ahead of time so that it had time to dry!

2. Then, get a rough idea of how much lace you’ll need for the length of the roll and to wrap around it. Doesn’t have to be perfect at this point, we just want to have a manageable size to work with. But give yourself a bit more than enough and you can cut off the excess later.

3. Start by gluing one end of it along the length of the roll. You’ll want overhang on either side. That way we can eventually fold it across for a bottom, and tuck it in on top.

4. Roll it in the lace, periodically putting a glue dab here and there.

5. Once you get to the beginning, put another line of glue and roll the lace over it to cover completely.

6. Cut off any excess length.

7. Fold the overhang across the bottom to close the hole up, using the hot glue to attach all around. I glued it up onto the side of the roll a bit and you couldn’t even tell afterwards!

8. Glue and tuck in the overhang from the top.

9. Use the hot glue to attach the string along the top and bottom of the lace crease.

10. Finally, glue your heart in the center. I suggest putting the heart a bit left of center so that it shows better when it’s one. I had mine in the direct center. When Lu put it on, it hung more towards the ground than I’d have liked. Live and learn!

Canvas Quiver

What you’ll need:

• 2 matching pieces of canvas (or any other fabric you’d like)
• Hot glue gun (the MVP of our crafts today!)
• String
• Red paint

Making the canvas quiver:

1. As luck would have it, I couldn’t find my other saved paper towel roll when we started this haha. So instead we got an alternate quiver, which I ended up loving! To get started, glue about 2/3 of the way down both sides of one of the pieces.

2. Lay the other one on top to they line up evenly. If needed, cut off any parts that don’t match up. 

3. Now that they’re attached, cut off a bit of the corners at the bottom where it hasn’t been glued together yet.

4. Finish gluing the bottom portion, but leave a tiny hole if possible at the top of one cut corner. I knew this ahead of time and still forgot haha, so if you forget too it’s no biggie.

5. Now take your string and glue an end of it into that little hole. If already glued shut, just tug at it slightly to give some room. We just want enough space to kind of hide the end of the string. 

6. Put the string across the bag and glue it into the top end of the other side. 

7. Lastly, time for a decorative touch! I wrote “Little Cupid” across the bag with some hearts. You could just draw hearts, write their name, or some other cutesy Valentine phrase.

*A note about sizing the quiver strings*

I made these to hang across the shoulder on my 2 and 4 year olds. The easiest way to measure how long your string should be is to simply hold it up against them. I glued one end of the string to each quiver, put it where wanted it to land on their back, and wrapped it around to the other side.

Phew, that was a lot of crafting! And a lot of hot glue– shout out to the MVP of this activity: my handy-dandy glue gun. If you don’t have your own already, I highly suggest getting one! My craft extraordinaire MIL got one for me a few years ago, and it’s become one of my most beloved crafting necessities. I’m not sure if mine is sold anymore, but this one has great reviews on amazon (affiliate link).

Once you’ve completed all the separate parts, you’ll have one seriously adorable Cupid-themed set of props. Use them as a fun DIY holiday decor, or in a photo shoot of your little cherub! Of course, they’re also perfect for some Valentine’s Day pretend play for the kiddos.

Looking for more Valentine’s Day craft inspiration? Check out last year’s craft where we made an adorable little lovebug.

If you loved this Valentine’s Day craft, don’t forget to pin it for later 🙂 Happy Valentine’s day, friends!