Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and our big picture window has been dressed up for winter since the beginning of December, so I decided to look on Pinterest for some ideas. At first I thought finding a simple and easy heart craft would be quick and fun, but it turned out to be a full week long agonizing Valentine’s nightmare. Crafters on Pinterest are either hardcore and their DIYs require too many obscure tools or their ideas are so far fetched that even I cannot imagine the most experienced crafter completing the task. This is Valentine’s Day after all, not the Presidential Inauguration at the White House.
To compromise I finally discovered a simple way to make construction paper hearts, which we turned into a garland for the window. Your tools are straightforward and you most likely have them in your house right now.
- Construction paper
- Scissors
- Stapler
- Ruler or measuring tape
- Pencil
Each heart is made from a strip of paper the length of a sheet of construction paper. We used strips that were approximately one inch wide. If you would like to use strips of varying widths that works just fine. For our hearts we used all of the colors available to us. Even black.
After your strips are cut, fold each one in half. To speed up the process we folded multiple strips at the same time.
When you are ready to start stapling, simply take two strips and put them so that their folds are nesting.
Staple once right at the V.
Now, bring the two sides of the second strip up and grab the stapler again.
Also, grab another strip of paper.
You already have one heart in the middle, but you will need to put a staple at the V on the third strip of paper before bringing in another strip.
Simply repeat the process over and over until you have as many hearts as you want. We did 10 chains of different lengths.
To string the hearts up as garland I used a large sewing needle and fishing line. You can also use yarn or clear thread.
Run the line or thread through each piece of garland and then pull it through to hang.
The hearts will clump together, but don’t worry as soon as they are hanging on a flat surface they are easy to straighten out.
Mr. MVP, my love, behind the backdrop of our hearts.
Here is our updated Valentine’s Day window. This heart garland took about 20 minutes to make and looks ultra cheerful in our front window. This craft is appropriate for all ages and requires absolutely no complicated tools.