Sweet Heart Craft

We recently moved and our new home has a fireplace.  Since we were moving through the Christmas season, we didn't put any decorations up.  Now that we are more settled into our new home, it is high time we decorate that mantle!

This project was great because it could be as simple or as complicated as we wanted (cause some days I just don't have the energy for big complicated projects--this was not one of those days).

The first step for us was to decorate the scrap paper.  I will be honest, my scrapbook paper collection is pretty pathetic.  I tried scrapbooking for about 5 minutes in college.  I quickly decided after paper cuts, glue all over my fingers, and wrinkly scrapbook pages that it wasn't my thing.  I have the same 50 page pack from 10 years ago that we are using for this project.  If you by chance have Valentine themed paper, you can skip this step.  My daughter (age 6 1/2) would not think a craft project is complete without some pink paint and glitter.

Next, make a template of a heart.  We traced the template and cut out 18 hearts (you will need 3 hearts for each completed heart).

If you want to get fancy you can cut out extra smaller hearts and sew them down the middle.  This step is totally unnecessary, but we did it anyway cause we wanted this craft to take us all afternoon.  I lengthen my stitch to the longest stitch my machine can do, before I sew on paper.

Lay out your three hearts, and take a deep breath.  The next part is not really hard, you just have to follow the steps, in the picture below.

Make sense?  3 hearts merge into one 3 dimensional heart.  If your hearts are not perfectly lined up, nows the time to trim the edges.  

Next, you can hole punch through the top (I was still unpacking and had not got to the box with the hole punch, so snipping a small hole with scissors works just as well).

Add the string, and add some beads or buttons. 

Hang those pretty hearts up for Valentine's.

What crafts are you doing with your kids this week?