Disclosure: I was sent these papers in exchange for honest reviews. All opinions are my own.
This year after taking down Christmas I really had a strong desire to decorate for Valentine's Day. I didn't want to use our regular decorations that we have from years past. I wanted to come up with my own new ones. I helped at Christmas time at Hazel's school with a Christmas station where the kids colored and made 3-D ornaments. I decided to make my own for Valentine's Day. I came up with six different hearts to color using My Memories.
I printed the two pages on card stock and then colored in the hearts. Then I cut them out and folded each one in half. I glued two halves together and kept going until all six were glued together. I glued a string loop into the center of them to hang it.
I love how it came out. If you would like to make one you can download my file here. (Please note all of my downloads are free and for personal use only. If you would like to share them please send people to this post so they can get it themselves. Thank you!)
On the same thought process I also made some 3-D heart ornaments using precut cardstock hearts from Paper Source. I bought a few packs at our local store. I folded them in half and glued two halves together. I used four hearts in each ornament. My plan was to make more but decorate the hearts. I just haven't had time to do it yet. Again I glued the strings into the center.
Awhile ago I saw these adorable Cardboard Heart String Art Projects over at Happy Hooligans. I loved them!! They remind me of my days teaching geometry and doing line drawings. I wanted to try them and used the precut heart cards instead of cardboard. I used friendship bracelet floss. I am going to play around with this idea and cardboard using rectangles and squares to demonstrate some of the old line drawing techniques at some point. (The flu and life have gotten in the way of my creative juices lately.)
I also had this idea to use the 3-D heart idea in a picture. My word for 2020 is Connect. I found a way to connect my word and idea. I printed onto cardstock a bunch of identical hearts and cut them out. I folded them in half and glued halves together but didn't connect them to form one heart decoration. Instead I glued the backs to paper to have it jumping off the page. I wrote on the page my "Connect with Love" and decorated it with some vine and flowers. I love how it came out.
For Sunday School tomorrow we are telling the story about St. Valentine. I am the one who usually finds crafts for the kids to do. I found an easy origami heart to make. I pulled out some origami paper to make some samples and for the kids to use tomorrow. I used Origami Paper Japanese Dolls,
Origami Paper Inspirational Messages,
Origami Paper Kaleidoscope, and
Origami Paper Rainbow Patterns.
I even tried the back side of a few of them to have solid hearts.
The other craft I have for the kids is a little harder. It is a Danish woven heart basket. I found the tutorial in All Year Round by Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton, and Marije Rowling.
For these I used Rainbow Watercolor Wrapping Papers. I cut the strips. You need two for each heart.
I put them with the designs toward one another. You fold them in half together. Then cut them so the unfolded end is curved, and cut three lines to make the parts to weave.
Then you take your pieces and hold them perpendicular to one another and begin to weave the inside pieces first. Instead of placing over and under you place the strips inside each other.
Once all the pieces are woven you glue a small strip handle on to it. My mother has a fabric one of these adorable baskets on her Christmas tree that her friend brought her back from Denmark. Ever since I was young I was fascinated by the ornament and wanted to make one.
The paper I used is actually wrapping paper. I love the quality of this paper. It is six pages folded into a book. The pages are perforated to take them out of the book. I love some of the ideas that I found on line to use this beautiful paper to make.
And of course you can use it to wrap gifts. I love the toppers they came up with for these fun gifts.
How are you decorating for Valentine's Day this year?
