Two hearts are better than one ... but you can choose just one of these paper techniques to jazz up your Valentine's Day cards. Use construction paper and teach your kids how to make these too.
I've included a short video, linked here (and embedded below) to illustrate the slightly tricky part of the pop up heart.
Woven Heart Pop Up Card
These instructions will make a card that fits into a 4 3/8” x 5 3/4” standard invitation envelope. Perhaps you have loose envelopes lying about? Alter these sizes to fit your envelope.
Materials: Cardstock, gluestick, X-Acto blade and metal ruler (or scissors), scissors, pencil
For embellishments: colored pencils, markers, glitter, any embellishments you like
You need 2 pieces of patterned (such as the double-sided scrapbook paper) or plain cardstock for each card:
For exterior: trim paper to to 11” by 4 1/4”
For interior of card: trim paper to 10 1/2” by 4” (I’ve used a heavyweight vellum)
Fold each piece and set aside
For the woven heart:
One piece of paper at least the size of your desired heart + 2”. I’m using origami paper. Or make a larger weaving * see note below.
Poke around a bit for scraps. I’m using book pages.
Draw a light pencil line 1/2” from the edge of your paper.
Cut strips into your larger paper t
o that pencil line. I cut 1/2” wide.
Tear or cut your paper scraps into about 1/2” wide strips
You can be as neat as you like or mix up the strips for a funkier look.
Now weave the strips in and out. Put little dabs of glue here and there to keep things steady because you’ll be cutting the shape from this weaving.
Trim the raggedy edges from the weaving. Add dabs of glue to the edges under the woven-over strips. Just to keep things steady.
For your heart template:
Trim down a plain piece of white paper (or old folder or scrap paper) to 4” square
Fold that paper in half and draw half a heart along the seam. Remember how to do that? Unfold and cut out your heart template. You could free-hand this, of course.
Place your template on the weaving, trace around and cut out your heart(s). Put your template aside you will need it for the pop-up.
Carefully (the heart may have some wobbly bits) apply glue to the back and stick it on your card.
You can also stitch the heart to your card with a machine or by hand. Just put a dab of glue on the back of the heart to keep it steady while stitching.
*You may be able to get more than one heart from a weaving if your weaving is large enough.
For the pop up. You will need the interior cardstock, folded in half. Here is a brief video of the next few steps, just to clarify. The step-by-step written instructions continue below.
Using your heart template again, place the fold of the heart against the fold of the cardstock, like this:
With a pencil, trace around the heart.You will only be cutting the top lobes of the heart, about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the heart. Like this:
Use an X Acto to cut the top part of the heart, along the solid line.
Pinch a fold along the dotted lines. Like this ...
You may have to reverse some of your folds to make the heart POP. (Valley Fold: Forms a valley between two mountains; Mountain fold: Forms a mountain). Here is a heart folding map showing the way the folds go.
Using a bit of glue stick, glue the pop up insert into the card, lining up the gutter folds on both the exterior card and the pop-up insert and centering north and south.
Your card is finished. Use markers or pens to write your message and embellish to your heart’s content. You can make a whole bunch of them in different sizes and shapes. Have fun playing with variations of this idea. Here, I stitched the woven heart to the front of the card. You could make a bunch of woven hearts, stitch them all together and make a banner. Ooo ... I might just do that!
