Conversation Heart Wall Hanging {Valentine’s Day Holiday Craft}

I don’t normally decorate too much for holidays with the exception of Easter, Christmas and Halloween. My family does enjoy Valentine’s Day though, so I figured maybe it’s time to amp up my seasonal decor. I figured this would be a perfect time for my eight year old and I to put our crafting skills to the test. We came across a very pretty wall hanging on Pinterest that was for sale and I figured it was something that we could make! So we gave it a whirl and we both really like the results!

You will need:

-1 heart shaped plaque for each member of your family. (We chose 7 inch plain wood ones we found at Michaels)

-Hot glue gun

-Variety of pastel acrylic paints. (We chose a different color for each heart)

-Foam paint brush

-Approximately 3 yards of 2 inch wide ribbon. You may need more or less depending on how many hearts you add. With four hearts I had some left over.

-Red construction paper and a Cricut or any die-cutting system or a red paint pen or alphabet stamps and a pigment ink pad

-Spray sealant

1. Paint the wooden hearts and let them dry. You may sand them first if you wish, ours were in good condition so I didn’t think that was necessary. My daughter and I painted on two coats. Set them aside to dry completely (ours were dry after about half an hour).
2. Next came the lettering. Ideally I had wanted to use a paint pen and paint on the letters for each name. Well, after practicing a bit, I was not happy with how that was turning out for me. It may work perfectly for you, I am not the best at fancy lettering, nor do I have nice hand writing, so I ditched that idea. I decided to use my Cricut instead. Any die-cutting system should work if you don’t have a Cricut. I would think that using stamps would work as well. Using the acrylic paint or pigment ink pads would give you a nice finish on the wood. Use what works for you! I cut our 1 ½ inch letters to fit our names. Depending on what method you go with and the length of your names your size may vary a bit. I ran the cut out letters through my Xyron sticker maker and attached them to each heart. Any craft glue would work.
3. Once that was finished I sprayed each heart with a light coat of spray sealant and let that dry completely.
4. Next I cut a length of ribbon about one foot long and tied a nice bow in the middle and trimmed the edges of the bow. I attached the foot long piece to the first heart to serve as the hanger. I hot glued each end of the ribbon to the top humps of the heart.
5. I then laid out a length of ribbon and placed the hearts on it trying to space them out so they looked even. Once we were satisfied with our spacing, I hot glued the hearts on and then trimmed the ribbon off so there would not be any extra hanging from the bottom.