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.