Valentine Conversation Heart Garland: a Tutorial!

In the house full of boys like mine, there’s not a lot of opportunity for pink. I think that’s why I end up wearing pink a lot [that and my hubby once told me I look good in pink… totally bought a lot of pink shirts after that!]

So, Valentine’s Day is really the perfect excuse to pink-ify my house. [yes, I made up that word. go with it.]

This tutorial is suuuuper easy. You could make it a project you do with your kids – or not. You could also make it much more intricate. You could even do it no sew.

Start with some felt. I used regular old by the yard felt. Wool felt will be nicer and last longer. Regular felt is cheaper, and I happened to have a bunch of it.

Cut the felt into strips. The width of the strips should be about how wide you’d like your hearts to be.

Fold the strips in half [I did two strips at a time, to make it go a little faster]. Cut your hearts on the fold, so the center of the heart is where the fold is. This is genius if, like me, your hearts are never symmetrical.

Cut as many as you’d like, from whatever colors you’re going to use.

Now write your cutesy Valentine sayings on top of the hearts. I used these Sharpie Stained fabric markers. They are awesome. Regular permanent makers will bleed, so don’t use those. [Also, my white felt had a “flatter” side that was better for writing on – the other side didn’t look as nice. This is also a case for nicer felt…]

Then sew them together – a straight stitch all the way across. You can space them farther apart if you want, then just keep sewing a little bit in between each one, so you end up with a “chain” of stitches in between your hearts.

You could also hot glue the hearts to a ribbon to hang them, if you don’t want to sew them. That’s what I did for this no sew birthday banner.

Then enjoy how excited your kids [even boys!] can get about simple Valentine’s decorations.