Valentine's Day Decorations that Anyone Can Do!

I needed some Valentine's Day decorations and I just don't like buying mass produced junk that I will probably just lose or rip and not use again anyway.  

Plus, we all know I love to make "trash" into something special.

One of my favorite materials to use when making decorations is newspaper.  Probably mostly because it's so easily accessible.  Also, I really love the black and white and the look of words on a page.

I didn't take step-by-step photos, but they are really simple to make!

Supplies:

Imagination 

Newspaper

Scissors

Any ribbons, paints, buttons, string, embroidery floss and needle that you have around

Stapler

Hole punch

Instructions

Step #1

Fold 2 pieces of newspaper in half, and in half again.  You can just randomly place the images on the newspaper, or you can try to place certain words and images where you want them.  (I just randomly placed mine)

Step #2

Even if you haven't made hearts in a while, I'm sure that you made them sometime in your past.  

Draw half a heart making sure that the fold is the middle of the heart.

Step #3

Cut along the line you just drew.  Now you have identical heart shapes.

Step #4

Here is where your imagination begins!  The first heart I embroidered around the heart with hot pink thread.  It took a little while.  For the rest of them, I just stapled around.  The embroidery is definitely cuter, but took much longer.

Make sure you leave one side open when sewing or stapling so you can stuff your heart.

Step #5

Use your hole puncher to punch a hole in the top of the heart.  Later we'll tie a ribbon through it to hang it.

Step #6

Stuff your partially closed newspaper heart with newspaper.  You can use the waste from when you cut out the hearts.  Rip into smaller(ish) pieces and stuff in the heart.

Step #7

Close up the heart by sewing or finishing stapling.

Step #8

Now you can decorate your heart any way you choose!

On each of my hearts I put buttons in the middle for a really cute look.  Just hold a button on each side of the heart and use your embroidery floss and needle to secure the buttons to the heart.

You could paint your hearts.  (I happened to not have any paint.  :(  My paints got put into storage when I moved.)

I added some ribbon and lace hanging from the bottom of some of my hearts.  I just stapled it in when I was stapling around the edges.

You could glue pictures to them, create a collage, whatever you can think of!

Step #9

Add a ribbon to hang your heart.

Step #10

Enjoy!

If you would like to see my newspaper hearts in person, just stop by BUiLDiNG CHARACTER tomorrow night (Friday, February 4, 2011) for First Friday!  (6pm - 9pm)