Hearts a-Flutter | Valentine Craft

Saw the cutest little craft the other day, and had to share it with you! I’m sure you’ll be a fan, just as I am. It’s sooo simple and has my heart all a-flutter.

Make yourself some of these adorable little accordion hearts, and hang them wherever you want to spread a little love!

It all starts with a simple circle of paper. The ones in this example are made using an 8.5” and a 6” wide bowl for templates. And old tattered book of children’s music provided some of the paper, and craft paper was used for the rest.

Materials needed:

• Paper

• Pen

• Scissors

• Scotch Tape

• Twine or Ribbon for hanging

Instructions:

• Draw a circle on a sheet of paper and cut out.

• Fold the circle in half, then unfold. Fold the outside edges inward to the center fold, and crease.

• Now fold those outside edges in to the center once and twice again and crease. Unfold. You should end up with a circle that has uniform creases from one side to the other.

• Beginning at one side, fold along the creases in a back and forth, accordian style until the entire circle has been folded.

• Now fold in half, pinching at the fold to form the bottom of a heart, and fanning the tops to form a heart shape.

• Tape the middle of the accordion together where it meets, toward the bottom, preserving the top ridges .

• Include a looped piece of twine or ribbon under the tape for hanging.

Happy crafting!

Craft Project | Rustic Heart Wall Hanging

This heart happy little project was done by a family member, and it’s so pretty I had to share!

She said she can’t take credit for the idea, she saw it done and decided to give it a try herself.

Inspiration tutorial by Shades of Blue Interiors. Link can be found here: Branch Heart Wall Art.

There are a few differences in the the inspiration and her rendition; the original crafter uses fallen sticks, this one is done with driftwood collected from the beach—white string was used on the original and this uses a rustic twine—and of course the color palette is different (pink versus teal).

I’m told that creating the heart shape was in no way easy!

1. First lay it all out. Plan to spent considerable time switching different length sticks in and out until it takes on the desired shape.

2. Then, do it all over again when you tie the twine to each one and suspended it from the long rail.

Pro-tips:

• Hang the rail first and ties each stick to it while hanging. (Trying to do it on a flat surface is impossible!)

• Start with the center stick and build out each side.

3. Once you’ve got everything strung up in a heart shape, you may just decide to leave it natural… but if not, then it’s time to paint.

Choose your color palette, here it starts with white, then a light teal, and finally a dark teal. You may decide to use more or less to create an ombre effect.

Laying a ruler across the heart shape helped to know where to start the paint, each new layer was started about an inch down from the previous color.

4. Once painted, hang once again, readjust as necessary, tighten the string/twine, and clip off any excess.

5. Hang where you will enjoy!

I love both, the original and our example here! And I’m sure there are countless other ways to craft something similar using this post as your inspirational jump-off point!

What materials would you use and what color scheme?

Where would you hang this? I think a beachy cabin, a bedroom reading nook, or a bathroom would all be perfect.

Let me know if you give something similar a try!

First comes the materials collection… then arranging and hanging.

It helped to lay a ruler across the heart shape to get a general sense of where to start the ombre painting.