Yarn Heart

This took me literally 5 minutes to make and turned out very cute - cuter than I expected actually! Perfect kid craft, but as always I'm not waiting for a kid to come make stuff with me and I just made it anyway ;) All you need is a cardboard heart, a piece of tape, and some yarn.

Don't have cardboard? When I'm searching for a thin piece (not thick like a box is made of) I'll raid anything - cereal or cracker boxes, the back of a notepad, etc. Dave doesn't even ask anymore why the bag of crackers is in the pantry not in a box hahahaha. Hey, you do what you have to do in the name of crafting.

So, trace and cut out a heart from a thin piece of cardboard - whatever size you want. Tape one end of the yarn to the heart to hold it in place and then start wrapping. And wrapping. And wrapping. Keep on going any which way to cover the cardboard completely. I found that in the beginning the yarn wanted to slip off the edges but as the heart got more and more covered it was easier to keep it in place. One thing I was thinking as I was trying to get all the cardboard covered so you couldn't see it, is that if you colored the cardboard the same color as the yarn then you could get away with tiny holes in the yarn wrapping.

Once the heart was completely covered and I liked how the yarn looked, cut the yarn from the rest of the skein and tuck the loose end in underneath the wrapped yarn. I pushed it in with the end of some not-sharp scissors to make sure the end was good and buried and wouldn't pull out. Then I attached a length of yarn to the top in order to hang it. Cute, right?

2.12.19: add a pin to pearls

2.12.18: Valentine ball jar vase and candleholder

2.12.17: goat cheese tart
2.12.16: Brooke and Sydney make 'cootie catchers'

Heart Dot Art

Cute, easy, quick Valentine Craft - so easy this would be a great kid craft (unless they're gonna get paint everywhere haha, use your judgement and have them wear an apron!). I made these two different ways - cut out a heart template from light cardboard, I made one cut on the bottom of the cardboard to cut out the heart and then taped it back together; for one I put the heart down on white cardstock and held it in place (if a kid is doing it maybe lightly stick it down to keep it in place) then using a pencil eraser dipped into craft paint dot all around the heart - I did thicker and darker next to the heart and lighter as I stamped away from the heart. For the other one just use the cardboard that you cut the heart out of as a stencil and put the eraser dots on the inside of the heart. Easy.

Heart Cork Wreath or Trivet

I should probably stop making things out of wine corks - you guys are gonna start worrying about my drinking habits haha! But...this is so cute! I've seen a bunch of ideas for heart shaped wreaths and trivets using corks and since Valentine's Day is coming I thought I'd attempt an ombre colored one and see how it goes. Initially I planned to paint the corks in different shades of red and pink but then realized when picking out the corks that they are already naturally shaded from the different wines - I have everything from deep burgundy to pale pink, cool - that saved me some time and I love how it looks.




I cut out an 8" heart shape from a beige colored piece of cardstock (the closest shade I had to match the natural corks), you could use cardboard or wood but the paper worked just fine since I didn't make a very big one. Sort out the different colors of corks and place on the heart cut out in whatever pattern you like - I started with dark on the bottom since I didn't have as many of the really dark ones and worked my way up with lighter and lighter colors until I finished with natural cork on the top of the heart. I keep losing count when trying to figure out how many I used, it's less than 70. Hot glue in place, then tie a piece of twine or ribbon around the outside to help pull the corks together. Didn't this turn out great?

DIY Valentine Poppers starring Brooke and Sydney

Watch Brooke and Sydney make Valentines Day poppers - what a fun party or gift idea!



Supplies:

-tissue paper
-empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls
-ribbon
-tape
-scissors
-small candies or toys

Cut up some tissue paper into small bits to make confetti.
Lay down a big sheet of tissue paper.
At one long edge stand up 2 paper rolls (either 2 toilet paper rolls or cut one paper towel roll in half) and fill with candy, confetti, toys, whatever.
Lay the rolls down carefully so the ends butt up against each other.
Roll the tubes up in the tissue paper and tie both ends with ribbon. Note Brooke tapes the solid roll in the middle but that made it too hard to crack the popper open, tape on either side of the middle.
Popper is done. To open, pull both ends away from each other causing the paper to tear in the middle and the confetti, etc. comes flying out. Cute!