Muffin Tin Party: Chinese Valentine’s Day

August 7th happens to be July 7th on the lunar calendar this year, which is Chinese Valentine’s Day or Qi Xi, Night of Sevens. The story is that one of the seven heavenly sisters (represented by the star Altair) fell in love with a cowherd (represented by the star Vega). They loved each other so much that they neglected their respective duties and for punishment were separated by the powers that be and only allowed to reunite once a year, on July 7th. In order to help them meet up, all the magpies of the world create a bridge to help them cross the Milky Way.

As this week’s Muffin Tin Monday theme was “Party” we of course had a little Valentine’s Day celebration.

We selected only red food (cherry tomatoes, red dragonfruit, lychees, watermelon, plums and of course ice cream – raspberry flavor. Mmmmm yummy!

We also made a wee banner to decorate our table. You can see the weaving maiden and the cowherd at each end, joined by a bridge of magpies. Here’s a little tutorial if you were interested in making your own (perhaps with a different theme!)

Materials needed: (oops, no picture!)
2 small lumps of clay (we used paper clay)
2 bamboo chopsticks
deco tape (paint would also work)
2 chenille sticks
paper to decorate (for the people/end posts, and the circles/bunting)
2 circles, larger than your clay lumps (for the skirts)
a hole punch (a craft knife would be okay)

Step 1

Make a lump of clay, and stick the chopstick in it. Set it aside to dry. If necessary, you can pull the chopstick out and put glue in it to stabalize it.

Step 2

Wrap deco tape around the chopstick. Paint would also work, but we’re all about fast and easy!

Step 3

Cut a line to the middle of your circle and punch it out with the hole punch.  As you can see, for this one I used a craft knife instead.  It’s all good.

Step 4

Place the circle skirt over the clay and bring the cut edges together, overlapping a bit to create a cone effect.  Reminds me of Christmas tree skirts, but that’s a whole different holiday.

Step 5

Punch out your circles (or triangles or whatever) and decorate as you like. We used 12. String them on to the chenille sticks (twist the two together) and then create a little loop around each end to fit over the chopstick.

Step 6

Decorate the end post pictures (ours are the cowherd and weaving maiden). Fold a strip of paper in half, and then fold the bottom edges in to create a triangle. Use your hole punch in the middle of the bottom edges.

Step 7

Fit the hole over the chopstick tops.

And that’s it! We’d love to see pictures if you make one. How do you usually celebrate Valentine’s day in your family?