Take Heart ... Valentine's Day will soon be here!

I love Valentine's Day for so many reasons! I am married to a wonderful man (love you, Baby), red is my favorite color, I love Valentine's candy and I also love to draw/doodle hearts, etc. So, to get in the spirit of things, lately I've been making several red burlap hearts to hang on your door for Valentine's Day. Working with burlap is so easy and it comes in so many colors. I used some leftover red burlap from Christmas to make several designs.

To make the large heart decorations:

1. Make a large heart pattern out of paper. Mine measured 24 in. wide by 21 in. long. Fold burlap so that it is double thickness, then you can cut both the front side and back side of the heart out at the same time. Trace the heart onto your burlap with chalk, which can easily be wiped off.

2. Cut out both layers of burlap at the same time. This will insure that the edges of both sides of your hearts will line up and make it easier when it comes time to join the two sides together.

3. Next, paint a design on your heart. I used acrylic paints. Because the red burlap is so dark in color, it tended to bleed through the white paint, turning it more of a pink color. But, since pink is a Valentine color, too, I didn't mind. I started off by painting white polka dots on all the hearts. In this example, I also added black dashes around the edges.

In this example I painted "Be Mine" free hand with black. I then realized that it was really off center, so I decided to make various swirl designs around the edges to make it less noticeable. This design turned out to be one of my favorites! So, don't get frustrated if you make mistakes, just turn it into something else!

In this design, I painted the wording, then decided to make a black and white check border. I started with painting a one inch wide black border around the heart. Then I let it dry.

Once it was dry, I went back with my white paint and painted one inch white squares on the black border. I think this really makes the borders "pop."

4. Once you have finished painting your designs and they have dried thoroughly, you can begin to join the front and back pieces together. I simply use staples to join them together. It's quick and easy. I stapled about every one inch. I found that if I stapled where it had been painted, it seemed to hold better. Staple a little more than 3 quarters of the way around, leaving an opening to stuff the heart.

5. Stuff the heart with waded up plastic grocery sacks until the heart is fairy firm. Then finish closing up the edges.

6. Next you need to add a way to hang the heart. I used both ribbons and wires. On the hearts with the painted edges, I used wire to make a hanger and then added ribbons to the top of the wire. For hearts without the painted edge, I make a hanger with ribbon and then tied extra ribbons in the center of the ribbon hanger.

Here are a few more examples of some of the hearts I designed. Because I work in a Christian school, I had requests for designs that spoke of God's love for us. I love the way they turned out!

(Sorry for the blurry picture!)

I am taking orders for hearts in the Little Rock area. If you would like for me to design a heart for you, please contact me via this blog, email (cleverlycreative@gmail.com) or by phone (501) 223-9515. The hearts are $25 each. Please contact me soon, as only a limited number are available. Thanks!

Melony
(aka Cleverly Creative Girl)