Heart Garland DIY

i know i always say im excited for a post so it might lose some credibility but you guys! a) i LOVE this post! and b) its a good thing they all excite me amiright? cause what would be the point of a post if i didnt care for it!

okay okay. enough!

the last time i was at Disneyland i kept thinking to myself about how i wanted to make something to send out to a few pen pals of mine for vday and this cute a little idea came up. 

sorry for the super crappy pictures buuuut i was working by candle light (small Ikea bedside lamp) since i was up doing these at 3 am. i slept all of Saturday so i was up all Sunday night and i didnt even care  how late it was cause i was soo excited to get these going! 

SUPPLIES: 

• felt sheet of color choice
• i bought pink and red. 6 sheets of each color
• needles
• thread
• to sew the hearts together and to create your garland afterwards (for that i used twine)
• scissors
• stuffing
• cardboard paper and a marker

INSTRUCTIONS:

depending on the size of your heart (and for sure the layout) you can fit up to 6 hearts (3 complete hearts in total) per felt sheet. 

in the picture above you can see my pre-cut heart (and several attempts) and the basic layout. 

you can use any type of marker/pen/pencil you feel comfortable with to trace on to the felt BUT make sure that you use the same tool for ALL the hearts otherwise they will come out different sizes. 

all the pink ones were done with a sharpie and the red ones were done with a dry erase board marker so they were different sizes. (seems logical but ya learn the hard way!) 

for the stitching, i was doing it the hard way then my mom showed me another way to do it (see above) so much easier! im sure there's a proper name for it buuuut im not going to get all technical with you. start from behind and bring it to the front. when you pull it almost all the way through create a loop and run it through and repeat. 

(just see pictures above im sure i did a horrible job explaining) 

i wasnt uber picky about how the front (or back) of the stitching looked, i was more about the side view 

doesnt that stitching look pretty!!! insert heart eyes emoji. also, thanks mom for talking your shit about my original stitching.

once you are pretty close to the end, stuff your heart! 

its ridiculous how much fun i had with that part.

of course on here the side stitching looks like a mess but once you're done with the stuffing you can adjust it and fix it so it doesn't look like its bursting its guts.

overall i spent about $14 on the supplies i needed (thread, felt and stuffing) i got them all at Michael's and i had a 50% off coupon so it wasnt that bad! i got 34 hearts out in total (2 died :( and i have 2 left over.) 

its sort of a time investment depending on how AMAZINGLYGREATOMGOPRAHCANTMAKETHEMLIKETHIS great you want them to be. im not super picky so it took me around 3 days (on and off of course) 

i made those 8 in like 4 hrs but that also included the tracing and cutting and matching of the hearts. 

afterwards it'd take me like 7-8 minutes to start/finish one. 

once i had them all done i just ran my twine through the back (sorry for the lack of picture on that but you can see what i mean here.)

this also works very well with letters. as seen here. in fact, im sure they are the inspiration for these little hearts. i know i forget basically everything i do pretty quick but that post stuck with me! ta-da!

im sending these out to a few gal pals of mine. im sooo excited for them to receive their little valentine's day package. 

thanks for reading!