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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Valentine hearts are full of sunshine



These little hearts were super fun to make. We saw them in a magazine a few years ago, Martha Stewart, I think, and decided this would be the perfect holiday decoration for our front door since that window receives the first days light. It's amazing to watch them transform right before your eyes from plain, white paper and then multi colored, multi faceted prisms. When they are out of the light they are pale in color but the moment the light hits them they shine radiant colors from the various colors of melted wax from within.

To make these hearts
you will need::

crayon pieces for melting
vegetable peeler or small grater to make crayon shavings
waxed paper
heart templates of various sizes
pencil
scissors
string
hole punch or large needle


To start, cut a piece of 12-16 inch waxed paper to a length of 32 inches. The wider and longer the more opportunity for heart shapes but also the more space to fill with your crayon shavings. It's up to you how many hearts you'd like to make and how much wax you have available to use. Our piece of waxed paper gave us 13 hearts (we had room to cut about 5 more but are going to wait and use them for something else!).



Next, fold your your paper length wise to form a crease. Shave your crayon pieces over one half of the paper. You don't need to fill it so full but include a nice variety of color to create a little depth and dimension to your finished heart.

Fold your paper length wise again, using the crease that you formed before. Then, close off the three open sides by folding them over. This will prevent hot wax from leaking all over your work space and iron. Our iron is used for crafting (mostly) so I did not put anything over the paper once I began to iron. However, if you've got an iron that you wouldn't want to risk getting wax on I suggest covering your bottom work surface with newspaper or an old towel as well as the top of your wax filled paper. Just in case!


Once you've gone over your folded paper a few times with your hot iron you will notice the wax melting and spreading around the paper beneath. Once your sure the wax is completely melted turn your iron off and set it aside. Let your paper cool a minute or so. Now you can trace your heart shapes all over the paper and cut them out!


Lastly, we popped holes in the top of our hearts and strung some string through them at varying lengths. We then attached another piece of string the width of the window on our front door and tied our hearts randomly from this string, creating a beautiful heart mobile that radiated bursts of color with the daylight shining through them.



Wishing you a lovely Sunday full of color and sunshine xoxo


11 comments:

  1. That looks like it must really be fun, and the hearts looks really lovely in your window in the final photo.

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  2. I love those, Seeing these made me remember that I made some with my son, many years ago...Maybe I'll make them with my daughter soon!

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  3. I love them! We are definitely planning on making some!

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  4. This looks so cute. Thanks for sharing!

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  5. I love this craft! We made them a few years ago when I too saw them! Great!

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  6. Thanks everyone!!! I'm so glad this post has been rediscovered!! We'll be making more ourselves! They really are lots of fun :)

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  7. Love those! They're now on our to do list for Valentines.

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  8. And a question; Where did you get that waxed paper? Never heard of it? Do you know about something else to be used instead with a similar result?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Anneli!! I can find waxed paper at our grocery store. It's like butcher paper; one side is paper and the other has this kinda waxy/plasticky side. You could also use parchment paper :) I hope this helps you :) Thank you for visiting xx

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