Step-By-Step Tutorial: Valentine Heart Photo Garland

If you're looking for a cute and special Valentine's Day craft project, this pretty garland made from simple materials like cardboard, glue, decorative paper and stickers or whatever you have on hand to decorate your photos will serve as a sweet decoration or a thoughtful gift. 

1. Make some hearts out of cardboard! You can either use a premade stencil to trace hearts onto the cardboard, or make your own by folding a small piece of paper in half and tracing half a heart, then cutting it while folded. 

When you unfold the paper, you will have a heart you can trace around, and also a heart cutout that you can trace inside, whichever is easier. Trace out your hearts on the cardboard and cut them out. I made these hearts about 3 inches tall. 

2. Pick some photos that you want to include in your garland and make photocopies. I used some old family photos from my mom's scrapbook. It's best to use an odd number of photos so that you will have one right in the middle. Cut out the photocopied picture by centering the heart on the image and then tracing around it to cut out the shape. 

You may need to tilt the photo one way or another to make it fit well on the heart. Don't worry if the photo doesn't cover the heart entirely, since we will be adding collage materials around the edges or wherever they are needed. 

3. Find some pretty paper to cover the back of the heart. I used scrapbooking paper, but you could also use wrapping paper or colored tissue or even some pretty colored photos from a magazine or calendar. I chose paper with a slightly more orangey red, since the color copies had a warm yellowish tone. Also, I decided to alternate the patterns on the backs of mine. 

At this point, you can punch holes out on each side of the hearts. Make sure to do this from the photo side so you don't accidentally punch out an important part, like someone's face! 

4. Once everything is glued together, it's time to have some fun! You can use leftover scraps of the backing paper or photos to cover any areas of the heart shapes that the photos didn't cover. I also used some paint around the edges to unify any places that didn't quite line up. That covered the white edges that were peeking out, and it also let me paint a little bit of tone on the photos to make them look even more antique and hand-colored. Add little stickers and cut-out shapes to emphasize and frame your photos.  

4. After you lay out your photos to decide what position they look best, you can use thin ribbon, like I did, embroidery floss, string, or yarn to tie your hearts together into a garland shape. 

I left extra ribbon on each side to make hanging loops:

This will make a wonderful decorative gift, especially for an older relative! It can easily be mailed in a Valentine card. 

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How I Knit without Knowing How to Knit

Ever since my grandma taught me how to knit when I was a little kid, I have always enjoyed knitting. However, since my grandma lived about 3,000 miles away, she only ever taught me the one stitch, and despite having purchased several books on how to knit, I still haven't been able to figure out how to knit for real--I still just kinda do that same stitch, with the sole variation of the "pulled-out" rows (in picture, above), which is actually the SAME stitch--I just do it twice on each loop.

Not only do I not know any other stitches except for the one (and cast on and cast off, of course), I also don't know how to follow patterns or make complicated shapes--I basically just make flat things. They can be long, skinny flat things called scarves, or big wide flat things called afghans.

To avoid having my knitted items be terrifically boring, as an expanse of one stitch can certainly be, I have discovered the wonderful world of specialty yarns. I use special textured yarns, variegated-color yarns, and I even cut yarn into short sections and tie the ends together, letting them hang out for a "fringe" effect. And that's how I can knit without really knowing how!

Above is a scan of one of my knitted pieces. If you look closely, you can see it's all the same stitch, but the different yarns make it look way more interesting!

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"Little Angels" Craft Project - Cheap Christmas Gift Idea

These are pictures of my craft project, "Little Angels", in progress. To decorate this plaque, I found a plastic candy mold that had little angel faces and bodies, but instead of using it to mold chocolates, I mixed up some plaster of paris and poured into the molds to make a little girl and boy angel and an angel face. When the plaster dried, I popped the forms out of the mold and painted them with acrylic paint.

To make the plaque itself, I used a piece of wood that I had cut to length (I purchased a larger piece and had several small pieces cut) at a hardware store, but you could also purchase a pre-made, unfinished plaque at a crafts store. I painted a blue sky background and added clouds with acrylic paint. I painted clouds for the boy and girl angels to sit on, and glued down the plaster angels in place. I put hangers on the back of the plaque, and now it is ready to be developed further. I could either use small hooks to make it a key holder, or larger hooks to let it hold towels or jackets. I also left space to personalize it with names or with a saying.

These plaques take a little while to make, but they are a lot of fun! You can find reusable candy molds of many different designs in most craft stores, and plaster of paris is a very inexpensive material--you can mix as much or as little as you want. It takes several steps to assemble a plaque like this, but it is very inexpensive. This is a great Christmas gift idea, isn't it? Everyone loves a handmade gift, especially one that is especially made for them. I think a child would love to have a personalized hanger for his or her jacket or bag.

My own photos - click to enlarge!

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