Thou Art Everyday My Valentine - A Valentine Gift Tutorial

I thought that this week we could make a rather lovely Valentine's gift that would not break the bank (it cost me less than £7 or just over $10!) but would show that you cared... so here is a simple but effective picture based on the perennial theme of St Valentine's Day.

You will need:
A decoupage box (you can get these in IKEA or Wilkinsons)
A sheet of background paper
Contrasting paper(s)
Heart shaped stamp
Glue gun or PVA glue or Double sided sticky foam
Ruler
Scalpel or pair of sharp paper scissors (Do not let me catch you using your fabric scissors for this as you will blunt them quicker than you can say Jack Robinson...)
A cable needle or metal knitting needle or something else pointy but not sharp
Craft mat

Take the back off your decoupage box and trace around it to form your background.  Cut out the square and glue it lightly to the background square.

Now decide on your design, I am going to try two, one in the shape of a heart and the other as a simple square pattern.  Use the cover sheet that is in your frame box to create a frame for you to work within.

Using your punch cut out your hearts and place them on the backing paper to see if it works.


Turn on your glue gun.  Take each heart, place the ruler down the centre of the heart and run the cable needle along the edge as we want the heart to fold up.  You may find it a good idea to put a small pencil dot on the backing paper so that you can see exactly where you will finally place your heart.  Now run a small amount of glue along the fold and press firmly in place, continue doing this until you build up your design.

As the hearts that I was using are quite petite, I whipped out my eyebrow tweezers to help place them at the appropriate point.

And for the harmonious square of hearts, use a small square of double sided sticky back foam to stick them to your backing paper.

Let your work dry and then place it back in the decoupage frame.

I also thought of doing a heart made from the pages of the map book we used to create the bows at Christmas which we found in the Charity shop... and I thought you could call it, "A map of my heart", or you could use pages from an old book and say "You read my heart like a book..."


My friend Sally made a beautiful picture for her daughter using butterflies for Christmas... I really think that this is a very versatile and flexible technique, in fact my mind is spinning and I can see that we could even use the folded hearts as petals in a bunch of flowers...


Finally, you can also paint the decoupage box frames to fit in with your room colour scheme.


Now go take a look at 1st Unique's Handmade Monday, can you believe that Wendy has been doing this for almost a year?  This is week 49, where has the time gone?

Now, I going to give you a quick preview of next week's tutorial... it is a pattern for a hat and matching scarf, as you can see I have almost finished the scarf but I need to crack on with it, so I thought if I told you that I was posting it, I would have to finish it!


BTW... there might be mittens a little later, once I have worked out the pattern... it may be some little time...