This printable Valentine’s Day Placemat is an excellent gift for children that gets them in the mood for sharing and caring.
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Children will look for and find hidden pictures, laugh, and enjoy adorable illustrations. Then they will fill in the blank spaces of a secret word puzzle to discover a message. Once they decode the missing letters, they will follow a tricky maze through a tiny neighborhood to deliver a letter to their Valentine. (The secret word puzzle reveals the finish line!)

Rated: Easy

I had the opportunity to illustrate a cover for a book of folktales centered on kindness. In that book, there were many stories about animals who awarded kindness to humans in return for service.
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I wanted to show that relationship in a fanciful, tender, and in some cases, comical fashion. For example, a child is carried off by a balloon while a bear reaches for them. Another bear gives a child a leg up to pluck a valentine from a Juniper tree. A boy snuggles with a deer in another scene, and a bird sings love songs.

There are also scenes and gags depicting love between animals, and in one case, between ghosts. For example, a porcupine confuses a bush with another porcupine, and a narwhale presents a card to a squirrel.
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There are many things to find, enjoy, and color on this page.

Rated: Moderate

This maze is tricky because there is no apparent finish line. Instead, you must find the finish line by decoding directions with missing letters.

It is an entertaining puzzle with a faux isometric appearance and lots of fun little things to see.

It took me a few days to figure out how to put this puzzle together, and I wrestled with it multiple times until I came to this conclusion. I hope that you enjoy it.

1. Purchase the placemat through my Etsy shop.
2. The download will be available immediately. However, the download is also open later if you sign in to Etsy.com. Go to Your Account, then click Purchases and reviews. Next to the order, select Downloads. Etsy will take you to a page for all the files attached to your order.
3. Download the files and print what you want to use or open them in a drawing app from your digital device. I have included PDF and JPEG files to accommodate most file-type requirements. You will also find the solution on your download page. Do not print the solution for your child!
4. The recommended printing size is 8-1/2 x 11. You can print on any thickness of paper. However, use good quality paper for the best results. Wet mediums require thicker paper over 120lb. Align paper properly for printing.
5. Tell your child the rules. They will choose whether or not they want to follow them. Allow your child to explore the page freely. Children who can read independently do well with the rules of the maze, but younger children may find more enjoyment from simply exploring the pages with color.
6. Let your child color the pages with whatever medium they prefer. Crayons, markers, and pencils do nicely.

xx Cory

This printable maze game is a great activity for children in the New Year.
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The best part is there are three activities in one. A maze to help develop problem-solving skills, lots of interesting little scenes, animals, people to discover along the way, and coloring fun to boot.

In this maze, I want to introduce “The Liddles.”

When I first sat down to create a maze game, I struggled with the level of detail that I included in the illustrations. I wanted something like “Where’s Waldo,” with gags hidden in the pages, but there was very little room for antics between the maze.

To get the gags across, I had to simplify the art to an extreme degree and sacrifice character. The result is these tiny things made of a circle, a square, and two stick legs. I call them “Liddles.”

Everything else is very similar to my typical art style at a miniaturized level.

Another creative decision I made here was to create a flat maze with the illusion of isometric projection. Again, it uniquely contributed to my style, but it also sped up the creation process.

1. Purchase this maze through my Etsy shop.
2. The download will be available immediately. However, the download is also open later if you sign in to Etsy.com. Go to Your Account, then click Purchases and reviews. Next to the order, select Downloads. Etsy will take you to a page for all the files attached to your order.
3. Download the files and print what you want to use or open them in a drawing app from your digital device. I have included PDF and JPEG files to accommodate most file-type requirements. You will also find the maze solution on your download page. It will have a red line following the correct path along the maze. Do not print the solution for your child!
4. The recommended printing size is 8-1/2 x 11. You can print on any thickness of paper. However, use good quality paper for the best results. Wet mediums require thicker paper over 120lb. Align paper properly for printing.
5. Tell your child the rules. They will choose whether or not they want to follow them. Allow your child to explore the page freely. Children who can read independently do well with the rules of the maze, but younger children may find more enjoyment from simply following the maze from start to finish.
6. Let your child color the page with whatever medium they prefer. Crayons, markers, and pencils do nicely.
7. Let your child circle or color items in the “Can You Spot” section. Can they find them all?

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The goal of this maze is to bring the missing matchstick to the Liddles operating fireworks at the finish line. Your child meets the goal by passing through the matchstick and then reaching the finish line. There is more than one solution to finish the maze, but there is only one without crossing lines or backtracking.

xx Cory