Heart Garland

An easy Valentine's Day craft that will brighten up any room - a heart garland!  I got the inspiration from a similar garland on Pinterest.  Can you tell I'm on a Pinterest kick lately?  Sorry (but I'm not). Simply customize the garland length to swag across your mantel, a headboard, dresser drawers, etc.  Or, lay it out on a table as a festive centerpiece or runner...lots of options with this one.

Materials:
6 sheets of felt makes a 5' garland (I used 2 sheets each of fuschia, red, and white)
Thread
Large needle
Sewing machine (or hot glue could work, too)
Scissors


Instructions:
1. Lay two sheets of felt (same color) on top of one another.  Attach the two sheets of felt by sewing a 1/4" seam all the way down the long side.

2. After sewing the seam, determine the size of heart you'd like to make...for my largest hearts, I decided to cut my felt down the middle of the sheets (and save half of it for another project).  I'd recommend keeping your hearts this size or smaller.

3. Open up your felt "book" and turn it inside out so the seam is on the inside, creating the inner peak of the heart.  See the heart now?  You essentially have a long column shaped like a heart.

4. Sew a 1/4" seam along the bottom peak of the heart column, making sure to hold the felt together so it sews evenly.

5. You can see the completed heart column below.  Now, simply cut off 1/2"-3/4" thick hearts with your scissors...it's kinda like slicing heart-shaped cinnamon roll dough. :)

6. Repeat the previous steps with your different colors of felt until you have all the hearts you want for your garland.  The pink hearts were my "large" hearts, so I decided to make red "medium" hearts, and white "small" hearts.

7. Lay out your hearts (I chose the pattern below) and cut a long piece of thread that will span the entire garland length.  Thread your needle and tie a large knot at the end of your thread so your hearts stay on as you string them.

8. For threading the hearts, I recommend squeezing the heart together (see below) then run the needle through both sides and the inner peak of the heart at once.

Step back for a second...the garland should look like this as you string the hearts on. You'll have to open up each heart a bit as you string it so your final spacing is accurate.

9. After threading each heart, one at a time this way, I decided to expedite the process and string several at once.  You'll know what I mean because it takes a while to run each heart all the way down the length of the thread, especially at the beginning.

Put the needle through several hearts at once...

String them down the thread, into position...

Then, open them up...

10.  Keep going, you're almost there!  Once you finish stringing all the hearts, remove the needle and tie a knot at the open end of the thread.

Now, you just need to determine where you want to place your heart garland.  (Disclaimer: the garland is a bit tedious to move around because you have to open up the hearts once you get it where you want it...they tend to flatten - booooo! gravity - as you move the garland around from place to place.  The good news is that once you have the garland where you want it, and the hearts are open, they do stay open.)

First I tried it on my "junk" cabinet...

Then in my sweet girl's room...

Hmmm, wonder how long it would last here...

Or, on my dining table around my ever-present white owl and candles...  

Where do you think it should dwell?  If anyone has any good solutions for keeping the hearts open at all times, please share your tip with us...  -Kristen