Dangling Garland Valentines!
I’ve been on a bit of a garland kick lately so I decided it might be fun to incorporate my new love of sewing paper into a valentine! I like to call it the Amazing Expanding Valentine! Mostly because when you lift it out of an envelope it just grows and grows and grows. What fun it would be to receive and then hang up in a dreary winter window, don’t you think?
Here’s how you can make them too:
First you need to cut a bunch of hearts. I set up a smorgasbord of hearts in all different colors and sizes and let the kids pick and choose what they would like from the stacks of paper hearts. One by one each child would make her selection and stand beside me while I sewed the hearts together. They all loved this part. Some of the littler ones even sat in my lap.
Of course if you are not the sewing type, you don’t have to sew the hearts together. You could use yarn or string and glue the string between two paper hearts. This would accomplish the same effect, minus the fun of hearing your sewing machine munch through paper.
After you have a string of five or six hearts now you can decorate!
Just set out some glitter, glue, sequins, stickers or stamps and let your kids go crazy.
When they’re done, and the glue has dried, you’ll have a masterpiece pretty enough to hang or mail off to Grandma!
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Oh my gosh – Bug looks like a big girl in this picture! They grow so fast! Sigh….
I saw the circles you did for Bug’s birthday and wanted to use hearts instead for my daughter’s birthday in February. I received an unrequested sewing machine for Christmas and am very itimidated! Do you just feed the next heart after the first one or do you need to pin them first like fabric? Is that a silly question?
I even left some stitching between some of them for more dangliness. Others I sewed close together. Feed them in and don’t worry! They’ll turn out great!
Brenda says: Just sew them! No pinning needed.
Love it! We’re going to have to try that, I know my two boys will find that to be fun, and I want to do some Valentine-y decorating to brighten up the place.
Another awesome craft. I loved your circles too, now hearts would definitely brighten up the winter blues here.
This is a great craft for valentine day. great work.
Bug’s shirt matches the craft! How cute!
Thanks for the idea. My girls and I had a great time making these. We recycled some hearts my Kindergartner made and took to school for 100 day! We had a fun time making this craft and it really did brighten up our house.