Valentine’s Crafting

I am a sucker for beautiful Valentine’s cards.  While I spend weeks thinking about the perfect Holiday card every year, I really enjoy thinking up the perfect Valentine.  This year, I’ve been whipping up a ton of these little hearts to go along with our Haute Papier Valentine’s cards (stay tuned for pics tomorrow).   They’re super quick and so cute when displayed all together or strung and hung as garland.

I’ve been making them in sets that are color coordinated… All of these red, white and pink ones are for my darling husband.  For our friends, family and clients, I’ve been playing with shades of browns and neutrals. Keep reading for step-by-step directions and more pictures…

To begin, I cut out a whole bunch of sets of hearts – you’ll need two felt cutouts for each heart.

Then I embellished each of the hearts with whatever my heart desired 🙂  Here are some examples of the brown ones I made.   I used embroidery floss to sew together all of the hearts and also to adhere all of the feathers, buttons and smaller felt hearts to the bigger piece.  You’ll want to sew your design onto just one of the hearts.

Once you’ve put the decorative element on the front of the heart, it’s time to sew them up.  I used the overcasting stitch to sew them together, though blanket stitch would be really cute too!

After I was about 3/4 of the way around the heart, I would pause for a minute to stick a small amount of batting (Poly-fil works great too) Then I continue around the rest of the heart and tie off the end of the floss by threading it through several of the looped stitches.

I then packaged them in sets of six in a mailing box and used craft paper to address them.

Happy Crafting!