Clothespin Airplane Party Favors

This Valentines Day, boys are in the majority for  us.  We have 5 Grandsons; but only one little grand-daughter … all of whom I like to mail Valentines to. On top of that, we are having a Valentine party on  Friday which will include 7 boys (My little Grandson Winston included), and no girls (not counting the Mama's and Grandma's of course).  All this has had me on the hunt for Valentine ideas for boys.  I was inspired by several pins on Pinterest that I found, and played a little with clothespins and wooden ice-cream sticks to make  these Clothespin Airplane party favors.  They came out pretty cute, so, of course I wanted to share them with you.

Materials:

1. Wooden Clothespins
2. Mini popsicle sticks  for the tail wing and rudder (you will cut both ends off some of your mini popsicle sticks, for a tail rudder for each plane)
3. Medium/small ice cream sticks or medium sized popsicle sticks (I used the ice cream sticks) for the wings
4. Hot glue gun and glue sticks
5. Magnets
6. Spray paint and/or craft paint

Steps:

1. Drop a dab of hot glue on the top of a clothes pin.

2. Place an ice-cream stick on top of the glue to create a top wing; press together firmly.

3. Place another dab of glue on the bottom side of the clothespin under and parallel to the first.

4. Place a dab of glue on the tail and glue a mini popsicle stick for the tail.

5.  Cut the ends of some of the mini popsicle sticks for tail rudders. Steve cut these for me with a hacksaw.  He put 5 together at a time, and put them in a vice and sawed them off (another alternative: use pliers to hold them and then saw them one at a time).

6.   Put a dab of hot glue on the bottom of the tail rudder piece.

7.  Glue the rudder to the tail.

Nows its time for the paint...

but I will say that, these are so cute even without the paint, that you could leave them natural, and they would be awesome.

8.  Create a protected environment to spray paint….

9.  Place a stick in the mouth of the clothespin to give yourself a handle while painting.

10.  Spray paint both sides of the plane (or paint with acrylic craft paint and a brush, and let the kids paint them.)

Decorate with an alternate paint color if you desire; Steve did all the painting for me; I think he had a great time doing it; there is a kid in all of us don't you think.    He also loved thinking about each of his Grandkids while he painted them.

Glue a magnet to the bottom.

These can be used to make party favors as is, or added to a Magnetic Greeting Card, for a cute decoration on the card.  Click here for the instructions. 

Have fun!