More things to make with old cards - 3D heart bunting

So there were still quite a few cards left after making the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and with Valentine's Day around the corner we decided to go with hearts.

I made this collage from cut up cards a few years ago, and though I was pretty happy with how it turned out, it was faffy and took forEVER....

These 3D card hearts are a lot easier!

1. First, fold a piece of plain paper and draw half a heart on the fold. Make your heart any size you like. We wanted to be able to get a couple from one picture, so ours aren't too big (8cm).

Open up and carefully draw round the heart on the back of a card. Cut out and use this heart as a template for the others.

2. For each 3D heart you'll need four cut outs, paired up (we went for matching designs and similar colours).

3. Glue the backs of the paired hearts together - match the dip at the top when you're gluing them.

The hearts will probably pop away from each other, so, put a book or a bread board on top to weigh down and keep them flat while they dry.

4. When they're dry, trim away any obvious sticky out bits around the edges.

5. Cut halfway down a heart from the dip at the top, and halfway up the matching one from the bottom tip. It's important to snip away a extra sliver from these slots to widen them, so the hearts slot together without buckling. If they still buckle and don't sit properly, trim a little more from the slots, but not too much; don't want your heart falling apart...

6. Decide what you want to hang your hearts on - ribbons, string, yarn - we used some leftover silver Christmas ribbon - decide on the length too, and tie it, stretched out, between two chairs.

7. Un-slot a 3D heart and work on the part with the slot at the bottom. Thread a needle and make a hole under the dip at the top.

8. Tie the heart onto the ribbon, when you're happy with the height, tie a double knot, then wrap one end of the thread around the ribbon again and tie another tight double knot to hold it in place.

9. Repeat along the length of the ribbon, keeping them evenly spaced. We arranged ours at different heights, in a sort of higgledy piggledy fashion.

If bunting is more hearts than you can handle, you could always make single hanging heart decorations. A handy little gift idea?

Linking up with Coombe Mill's Trash2Treasure

A Rubbish Valentine

... and that's what it is, but possibly an improvement on last year's homemade Valentine's day surprise, when I drew colourful hearts around a comedy potato. Yes, I really did. And if you can't quite picture it, why not take a look.
It seemed so right at the time, with the irish/potato thing going on, but I'm not sure now. To be fair I was still getting used to my husband being away, and he said he liked it. Bless him. Crazy fool.

This year's is complete trash, of the recycling variety - made out of my son's old birthday cards..

collage heart

Now I did ask first, but he still had a bit of a moment when he saw them cut to pieces, so had to quickly divert his attention with some mini chocolate eggs.

I got the idea from an art show the children watch called Totally Rubbish. It's the sort of kids telly I can sit through - mostly about making things from stuff people often throw away. There was an artist called Robi Walters on this particular show who made the most amazing collages using petal shaped pieces of card, cut out of packaging. He certainly inspired me, and that's when I started eyeing up the birthday cards...

I also found a few glittery old christmas ones, and then cut them into strips, and cut the strips into petal shapes.

It took a while to get my petals looking roughly the same - a pretty monotonous job, but I got into a kind of rhythm and just did a few strips when I had a minute. You need A LOT, and it's also a good idea to sort them into colour piles as you go along. My heart is predominantly red, but there's quite a bit of blue, pink, yellow and gold going on too.

I glued little red squares, cut out of a sugar puffs packet around the outline of the heart, and started sticking the petals on, overlapping them a little.

The collage takes time, so again I did the gluing when I could - quite often in front of the telly, and then left a bread board on top of the heart until the next spare moment.

I'd been following the outline, but it started to look a little wonky - so instead drew ever decreasing heart shapes inside, and used them as a guide until there was a tiny one left in the middle. Well sort of in the middle..!

Just the right size for a teeny heart with a diamante from last year's card. It travelled far that card, so it's pretty special.

And I'm going to be able to give my husband his collage heart on the 14th, which makes a change! He is weekly commuting at the moment, but turns out he will be home on thursday. It'll be our second Valentine's day together in 12 YEARS of marriage. Not that I'm counting or anything...

How rubbish is that?

Linking with Lakota's Ta-dah! Tuesday