Another Valentine’s Day has come and gone; did you make anything fun to celebrate? Maybe baked something tasty for a loved one, or gave a friend a Valentine’s card?
We made Swedish Heart Valentine Holders with our groups last week. Really simple, but a pretty and useful craft as well!
(And sure, these are normally a Christmas-time decoration in their native Sweden, but with their fun heart shape our participants loved doing them for Valentine’s.)
The basic steps are, once you’ve cut out two shapes like this:
You weave the strips together to make something like this:
Using liquid glue, glue two Swedish Hearts together along the bottom two straight edges. Make sure to leave the curved part unglued so you can put your valentines inside!
Add you name to the front and you’re done!
Some tips:
- We cut the initial shapes for the Swedish hearts ahead of time, since not all of our participants have the kind of fine-motor skills this step calls for.
- We did, however, have them cut out the name plate hearts for the front of their card holders. It’s always fun to see that half-heart shape open up to a symmetrical heart!
- Finally, it really is easiest to use two different types of glue for this project: glue stick for gluing the ends of the strips to the final edge of the heart (do this as you go along or when all of the weaving is done), and liquid glue to get the two large hearts connected to make the card-holding pocket. I know two glues sounds like overkill, but they really do their jobs well here!
Everyone had so much fun making all of the pieces for their hearts and decorating them!
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!