Valentine’s Crafts

I have been so inspired lately to make Valentine’s Day crafts. This is odd for me, as Valentine’s Day has never really been one of my favorite holidays. I have no idea why, I just wasn’t ever really into it. This year, though, for some reason I want to put up as much pink, red, and hearts as I can. Maybe it’s because that stuff is so cheerful and almost spring-like. I really want spring. Anyway, I digress. Today I made not one but TWO Valentine’s Day projects that I’ve been meaning to do for awhile. The best part? Each one took under an hour to make. This is great if you are a naptime crafting mom like me. Without further ado, here is what I made and a tutorial for both!

First I made the yarn wreath. I started making these last spring after I saw them all over Pinterest and I’ve become slightly obsessed. They are relatively easy and definitely fast enough, plus they are pretty cheap. You just need a foam wreath form (which you find in the fake flower section of any craft store or Walmart) and some yarn to start. Don’t waste your money and get the super soft, high quality yarn. Why? You aren’t wearing it. It’s going on a wreath. I buy the $3 bargain stuff. Then, of course, you also need whatever embellishments you are going to put on it. I always use felt for this. For this particular project, I used 1 sheet of red felt and one sheet of pink felt.

First you wrap the yarn around the wreath. To do this, leave the yarn in a ball. Take the end piece and tie it onto the wreath, leaving a little tail. Don’t cut off that tail or wrap over it. You need it to tie onto at the end. Then you can trim it. Once you’ve done that, just keep wrapping the yarn around, through the middle and then over. Now, it is tempting as a perfectionist to make this, well, perfect. That is completely unnecessary. If you overlap a little and you have some spots that aren’t 100% smooth that’s okay. You’re going to cover them up with the felt hearts anyway. It took me about 20 minutes to wrap this wreath. And that was with being just a little anal about things.

Then you want to cut out your hearts. To do this, I cut a sheet of felt in half the long way (horizontally) and then cut the resulting pieces into three sections. Then I folded those sections in half on the shorter part (vertically in this case) and cut “half” a heart—which when it is unfolded makes a full heart, like these:

Then, after you make sure to put a little loop on to hang the wreath if you would like, you glue the hearts on. Just use a hot glue gun and put a dot at each tip. You don’t need a ton. Alternate red and pink until you have gone all the way around the wreath. Then you’re all done! From start to finish, this took me 45 minutes. Not bad! Only half a nap!

I had to trim down one of the hearts to make them all fit. I think that makes it cute. If you’re crazy picky, then I would just make the hearts a tad bit smaller all around and this wouldn’t happen.

For my next project, I made Valentine’s Day embroidery hoops. I LOVE embroidery hoop art. I actually came up with this idea when I was walking around aimlessly at the new Hobby Lobby in Racine with my best friend Jessie last Saturday. I knew I wanted to make some Valentine’s Day crafts and I had this strange urge to buy fabric because it is always so pretty. Boom! This idea was born!

This project requires 4 small embroidery hoops, 1/2 yard of printed fabric and about 1/4 yard of solid color fabric. First, you fill the embroidery hoops.

Now, I bought way more than 1/2 yard of the printed fabric because I intend to use it for some other projects later.  To be as conservative as possible, I laid the hoops on the fabric and first cut a square of fabric around them. You can get pretty close for this as you really don’t need much extra beyond the hoop.

When you have your square, separate your embroidery hoop and then put the square over the bottom piece.

Then just put the top piece over that and tighten it. I also pull the fabric after I do that to make sure there isn’t any slack.

Then you just trim the excess off. To do this, I flip it over and cut from an edge toward the hoop. Then I just use the hoop as a guide to keep my scissors in the right spot and cut around the whole thing. Easy peasy.

Then I moved on to the letters. I wanted to spell out “LOVE” with a letter on each hoop. Rather than free-handing it and guessing, I made my own letter patterns. This was really easy. I just needed paper and a marker. I started by tracing the hoop onto the paper.

Once I had the shape and size I needed, I drew the letter in the way I wanted it to look.

I cut it out and then this first time I set it on the embroidery hoop to make sure it looked how I wanted it to. I repeated that same process for all the letters.

I then attached the letters to the solid red fabric I was using. I did that with masking tape, but pins are probably a better more crafter-approved way of doing it. I just didn’t have pins. Masking tape works fine too. Comes right off.

Again, I positioned the letters the way I wanted them to look. Then I just glued them on. Be careful to just put little dots of glue on the ends instead of all over. You don’t need tons of glue to do this and you really don’t want to be able to see the glue all over. A little dab will do you. When it was done it looked like this:

In total, it took about 45 minutes again. Really not bad. I thought it would take longer. After Baby Ray woke up so I wouldn’t wake him up with the hammering, I hung them on the trim between my kitchen windows.

I think it really cheers things up in there. Warms it up a little too. I didn’t plan it this way, but the colors go really well with my curtains.

Just one naptime for two projects! I was pretty excited to get this all done and decorate a little! Hope you can use this to add a little Valentine cheer to your house too!

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