Valentine's Day is around the corner and we're getting ready with handcrafted decor. Today Mari J from Bella Marintelli is showing us how to make a DIY embroidered heart garland that each of your children can contribute to. This simple craft can be done with children as young as three and can be expanded each year, growing with your family and creating a meaningful heirloom.
The garland in this tutorial has three embroidered hearts, but you can make more or less, allowing each of your children to make one. You can even embroider their name and the year on the heart to create a sweet timeline as they grow. Mari recommends solid color hearts for the embroidery, but you can use any mix of colors or pretty printed fabric for the smaller hearts. This garland is entirely customizable.
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Materials You'll Need
- Various colors of felt or scrap fabric
- Twine or yarn
- Glue gun
- Heart cookie cutters or heart templates- 1 large (about 4 in.) and 1 small (about 1-2 in.)
- Embroidery thread of different colors
- Embroidery needle
- Embroidery hoop
- Wool roving or cotton balls
Creating Your DIY Valentine's Garland
- Use your large heart cookie cutter to trace six (or more) hearts onto a solid color felt. If you don’t have cookie cutters on hand use a scrap piece of cardboard to make a heart template.
- Cut a square around one of your large hearts and place it in the embroidery hoop. Thread your first color of thread in the embroidery needle and allow your child to be creative and thread the needle in and out of the felt with your guidance for safety.
- Use as many colors as you'd like to decorate the heart with your child's unique design and repeat for your other large hearts.
- Once three of the large hearts have been embroidered, cut out all the large hearts.
- Place a large plain heart underneath an embroidered one and sew them together using a whipstitch.
- Leave about 1.5 inches unsewn and stuff with cotton balls. Once you have stuffed your heart, sew the remaining section closed and tie it off. Do the same with your other large hearts.
- Using your small heart template trace and cut small hearts out of various colors of felt or scrap fabric. Cut as many as you want for your garland in multiples of two.
- Cut your thread/yarn the desired length for your garland.
- Space your stuffed hearts out along the garland and thread your twine or yarn through the top portion of each heart, in between the back and front sections.
- Lay your small hearts along the garland in stacks of two in between the stuffed hearts.
- Use a hot glue gun to glue 2 small hearts back to back on either side of twine/yarn. Repeat with remaining small hearts in desired patterns and spacing.
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