Excavator Valentine Craft

My 2 year old son is currently into dinosaurs, zoo animals, and construction trucks. In fact, we are all about the construction trucks around here. Namely, excavators. Bulldozers are well and good, but there’s something special about excavators that hold his attention. Thus, I had to come up with a set of excavator valentines for him, and I’m pretty sure I scored some points with our Excavator Valentine Craft, complete with Free Printable Excavator Template!

This Excavator Valentine Craft isn’t just a regular paper craft. It has real movable parts! Perfect for scooping up hearts this Valentine’s Day. Because my boy, he’s pretty cute. I’m sure he’ll have plenty of hearts to scoop.

For our Excavator Valentine Craft you will need our Free Printable Excavator Template, as well as cardstock in red, black, white, and your choice of colors, brass fasteners, a silver marker, heart paper punch, stapler, glue stick, and scissors.

Excavator Valentine Craft

Supplies needed:

• Excavator Template
• Cardstock – red, white, black, assorted colors
• Brass fasteners
• Silver marker
• Single paper punch
• Heart paper punch
• Stapler
• Glue stick
• Scissors

Begin by cutting out the pieces of the template. Use these as a guide on your choice of colored cardstock for the excavator. All except the smaller square and rounded track piece.

Cut the pieces out of the cardstock.

Cut the smaller square out of white cardstock and the rounded track piece out of black cardstock.

You will see that the bucket as a higher side. Fold the bucket in half then staple the higher side closed, forming a pocket.

Now punch holes in the pieces according to the image above.

Glue the wider rectangle to the bottom of the large square according to the image above.

Insert a brass fastener into one hole of the longest rectangle and through the hole in the wider rectangle.

Then continue attaching the pieces with brass fasteners.

Glue the black track piece to the wider rectangle.

Use the silver marker to draw tread around the track.

Now glue the white cab piece to the middle of the square piece.

Punch out a few hearts. Adhere as desired. Insert a heart into the excavator bucket.

Write a message in the white square area.

Not only is this a great Valentine’s Day craft, but it’s also a fun way to play with shapes as it’s basically made with nothing more than squares and rectangles.

If you have a little guy like mine who loves dinosaurs, zoo animals, and construction trucks, be sure to also check out our Dinosaur Valentine Cards, Craft Stick Heart Elephant Craft, and our Heart Lion Craft, too. Plus, we have many, many more fun Valentine’s Day craft ideas at Our Kid Things!