Minecraft Creepers & Minion Pudding for Valentine's Day (or "Friendship" Day)

Somehow, we're more than halfway through the school year. Oliver celebrated his 100th day at school last week, and now we're planning for Valentine's Day parties at school today & tomorrow.

Last year, I got to craft the valentines I liked best since the kids had no opinion on the matter (remember these?). This year, Oliver asked for Minecraft valentines. That sounds like a simple request, but, alas, stores don't seem to sell them. I appreciate a challenge, so I took to Pinterest to find an idea. This is what we came up with:

Andrew found some Creeper images online and adapted them so they could be printed and folded over a fun-sized Kit-Kat bar.

These are the tags I made (with a little help from Andrew). They aren't the greatest, but I don't pretend to be an expert at photoshop:

Then it was time for Jo's valentines. She loves Minions, and I'd seen some creative Minion ideas on Pinterest that involved making minions out of pudding cups. They looked cool, but I'm pretty busy these days and was spending enough time making those Minecraft valentines.

So, I decided just to get some simple store-bought valentines. Jo loves so many different cartoons and candies that it would be easy. Right? Seriously, that's easier said than done. The small grocery store by my house doesn't even sell children's valentines. I planned a trip to the bigger grocery store, but whatever they had was mostly gone when I finally got there last night (That's what I get for waiting until the last minute). I was looking for anything Jo would love: Frozen, Minions, Doc McStuffins, Peppa Pig, even Peg+Cat. Nope. The only things they had left were superheroes and My Little Pony.

What happened next is either serendipitous or just a flat-out lie for dramatic effect. I then stumbled into a sign from the mighty Valentine's Day gods (Cupid, I guess?). A big Price Chopper display of pudding snack packs: 99 cents for a 4-pack. So, I bought the stupid pudding to make minions. 

Now, my husband and I don't fight. We just don't. But after juggling the kids and going to ballet, finding time for school work, and prepping for the "Friendship Day" craft that I'd signed up to host at Jo's preschool, I now needed to run out to the craft store to buy supplies to make minions. Let's just say I was a little testy, and my children are going to grow up with issues related to Valentine's Day. But I got to Michael's, and I bought a package of googly eyes, a 70 cent sheet of silver paper, and some thin black tape to make some minions. (If you're reading this to actually do this craft yourself, make sure you also have a hot glue gun!)

I found something round in my house to trace 12 silver circles (one for each pudding) and cut those out. 

I stuck a piece of black tape around each, and then I hot-glued a googly eye onto a silver circle and glued that to the black band. Note that I accidentally bought glitter tape, and these minions are actually shedding glitter all over the table. I imagine they probably shed into the pudding as well, making these some sort of bio-hazard, I'm sure.

But they're cute, right? Maybe that was worth all the driving around. I kind of thought so. Andrew and I hugged and made-up, and I swore I'd buy store-bought valentines next year.

Then, this morning, I got to Jo's party. I swear to you, there was a table display of pudding robots set up by a parent of one of the students.

I called my husband and told him that these robots put my minions to shame. They have juice box bodies, lollipop arms, pudding heads, two googly eyes, and chocolate shoes & hair.

Bonus photo of Jo wearing the necklace she'd made at her friendship party. At least that went over well!

One kid gave the other kids a tub of Play-Doh. That was Jo's favorite (better than the Minion pudding, for sure). She made a robot out of it because the robot Valentine made such an impression on her.

Happy Friendship Day!