DIY Valentine Decor: Heart for a Loved One

Valentine’s Day, or to give it its full title, the feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated every year on the 14th of February. This is a special occasion where people can demonstrate their affection for someone special in their lives by sending them cards, chocolates, flowers, or any other gifts, complete with messages expressing their love.

The origins of this celebration are rather obscure. Valentine was a saint in history, but there are conflicting rumors about who he was. But there is no doubt that the Ancient Romans had a festival called Lupercalia starting around mid-February, which was officially the start of springtime. This was when boys would draw girls’ names from a box, whom they would then be paired with for the duration of the festival. Sometimes these even resulted in marriage!

Nowadays, this day is widely celebrated across the globe as an occasion when people in a relationship can express the intensity of their emotions for each other. If you feel like treating someone close to you to a present more long-lasting and meaningful than a box of chocolates, here’s a suggestion for a wall decoration you can create, providing a truly personal gift. This can be accomplished very easily, with inexpensive materials you can purchase from any craft shop or stationers.

Supplies

You will need a pad of pink post-it styled notes measuring 10 x10 cm, two larger A4 sheets of pink paper, a sheet of thin cardboard, a thin cotton strip 10 cm long, a pair of scissors, and a glue stick.

Step 1: Step One

The first thing you have to do is prepare the post-it notes by

folding them into shape. These will form the attractive carnation flower-style designs that will form the backdrop to your decoration.

For each of these, place a note onto a hard surface. Fold this diagonally, top left to bottom right, top right to bottom left, leaving you with two folds in an X-shape. Now fold over at right angles, leaving a square post-it partitioned into eight segments.

Step 2: Step Two

Take each of these triangular segments and fold them along the

edges and then again to leave you with 16 triangular segments. Then you fold the corners in on each other so that the edges meet, kneading them with your fingertips, creating petal shapes. Gently ease all the right angles together to complete this smooth effect, until what you have left resembles a flower.

You can complete the floral appearance by holding a thin wooden rod to the edges (something like the stirrer you’d pick up in a coffee shop), curling them over to create the finished flower design.

Step 3: Step Three

Repeat this process with several post-it squares, until you get

around 20 of these, depending on the size of decoration you are hoping to achieve.

Step 4: Step Four

Take the sheet of cardboard and draw a large heart shape on it.

Cut around the edges with the scissors to achieve a stencil. Place this stencil onto one of the A4 pink sheets and draw around it, cutting around the edges to leave you with a heart shape. Repeat this action, so that you have two of these pink hearts.

Step 5: Step Five

Apply the glue stick (Pritt-stick or something similar) around

the edges of the cardboard heart, and then attach one of the pink hearts. Press it flat. Flip this over, apply glue, and repeat the process. This will leave you with two sides to your cardboard heart. Glue all your flower shapes to the base heart, leaving you with an attractive looking flowery heart design covered in individual blooms.

Step 6: Step Six

Flip over to the flat side and glue to the ‘V’ at the top of the

heart. Attached the ribbon material here, looping it over to create a hook, gluing into place. Now you can hang this on the wall with a tiny nail or Blu-Tack.