Thursday, January 22, 2009

Paper hearts

These are hearts with a special glittered edge that looks like tinsel or rick-rack. It is a more advanced paper project, but there is an easy one at the end.

I used to think that all children were taught the making of a heart and a snowflake, ( our mothers always showed us how to do this ) until I began meeting older children and teens who did not know how to do it, so included is a little demonstraton on how to make hearts.

Draw half heart shapes on the folds of used paper, junk mail, construction paper, etc. for your patterns. Make several of them, open them up, and pick the ones you like the best for your pattern. You can stop, at this point, and just cut out colored hearts from construction paper, and use them for cards or decorations. We have used different sized pink and white hearts, made by children, to scatter on luncheon tables, as "confetti," with a little glitter on each heart. Pick the best ones for your templates. Practice making them until you arrive at a shape you can use. Draw them from the fold outward and down to the tip again. Click on for a larger view.
Cut them out and glue them down on cardboard from cereal boxes or the cardboard from calendars, for your templates. Card stock is not as sturdy or enduring, for templates.


Now, place these templates on heavy card stock or fancy papers, in position so that there is plenty of space around them to cut outside of the line. Index cards are good for card stock, if you have them. They also come in many different colors and are great for small projects, where you do not want to use a full sheet of paper.


With deckle edge scissors, cut outside of the line, leaving some space for the glitter. Regular scissors will work just fine, also. One in the picture at the end, was made with straight scissors.

Pour out some white glue on a lid and paint the edges , up to the drawn line, with a flat edge paintbrush . A child's watercolor brush will not work as well, with this project.

Shake glitter color of your choice over the serrated edges of the card, and collect it into a dish. Another method is to pour a lot of glitter into a container and dip the wet edges of the card into the glitter. Pour excess glitter back into the container, or put a lid on it and keep it to use again. Glitter is messy, so I do all my tracing, cutting, gluing and glittering inside of a very large, flat box.


Samples of the glittered edge technique: The ruffled edge in the upper middle is made by sandwiched the crepe paper streamer, pleated, between two card stock hearts. The lower right hearts were made, with help, by a two year old girl.
The heart shaped card is painted with white glue, then filled with cut squares of tissue paper, scrunched with her baby fingers, made to look like roses. Click on for a larger view of the others: the one on the far left is topped with another heart after it the edge was glittered, and the one in the middle topped with another cut out heart in scrapbook paper. Another "scrunchy tissue rose" is placed in the middle of the one on the upper left.

8 comments:

Marqueta (Mar-kee-ta) G. said...

Dear Lady Lydia,

Those are so beautiful and creative! Thank you for taking your time to put all the lovely "floursack frugal" crafts on here that you do; they truly bless our lives.

Love,

Marqueta

Lisa said...

My girls love to cut out hearts and often they draw on them or color them. I will have to put out some other materials for them to decorate, especially with Valentine's Day coming up. Thank you for posting the ideas! These would be nice to make for the residents of a nursing home. Blessings!

Proverbs 31 Sisters said...

Oh how beautiful! Thanks for showing the step-by-step pictures. We will definitely be trying these!

~~Laura and Elizabeth

Jennifer @ Her Southern Charm said...

EEK! Those are the cutest things ever! Love them! I may have to make some and string them across my mantel. Nice work! :)

Dawn said...

Paper hearts are fun! :-)

I am 27 years old and I still don't know how to cut out snowflakes. :-( Isn't that sad? I don't think my mom knew how to either.

Your hearts are pretty and girly..they way they ought to be. :)

Blessings to you and your family for a safe and fun weekend!

Dawn in TX

Lydia said...

Dawn in TX, I'm fixin' to make something even cuter, to show soon.

Our kitchen project began with one small leak and lead to demolishing things. The floor is torn up, carpet ruined, walls really needing something done. I have not been doing anything serious in sewing or hospitality or home making because I was thinking I would just wait til the restoration of the kitchen was finished. Now I am seeing that this is never going to be finished, so am going to clean up the mess as best I can and get back to cooking and sewing. For updates, go to Lillibeth's blog at www.thepleasanttimes.blogspot.com

stumble-tripping feet said...

OOH, we're going to make these to put in the window! I love them. I wonder if my three year old son will help me??? Probably not. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Oh how lovely, I didn't think of those decorations for hearts but I will remember. For our first anniversary (30th December just past) I gave my sweetheart a (homemade) heart-shaped box filled with paper hearts (paper anniversary) 1 for each day we had been married, I had dated each one and written something that day that I loved about him. I didn't even think of putting glitter round the edges and things like that, I simply used lots of different papers that I had - gift wrap, pretty envelopes, plain paper etc.

Now with valentines coming up I have more ideas thank you.