With Valentine's Day just around the corner, how about making a colourful, heart-themed mobile for your little one's room to show them how much they're loved? Or perhaps you could spend an afternoon crafting and make it together. It would be a wonderful thing to do on a cold and rainy Winter's weekend. We've made ours from leftover pieces of our delightfully dotty Confetti Spot Children's Wallpaper and pink and turquoise card to pick out the colours of the spots.
You will need:
- Wallpaper/coloured card stock
- Paint brush
- Glue
- Scissors
- String
- Hoop
- Command hook
Let's get started!
STEP ONE
To help the wallpaper keep its shape (it will want to curl after being rolled up), glue a section on to a piece of plain card stock and put aside to dry. Meanwhile, decide how big you would like your hearts to be - in our example, they are 7cm at their widest and longest points. Cut one heart out and then cut it in half lengthways. This will be your template.
STEP TWO
Cut strips of card every so slightly wider than the widest point of your heart, and then fold them in half lengthways. Draw around your half-heart template (as shown in the image above) and cut out as many hearts as you require, bearing in mind that you'll need four individual cut-out hearts to make a single 3D version like in our example.
A quick calculation: If, like us, you want to hang six 3D hearts per length of string, you'll need to cut out 24 hearts. And ten separate lengths of string means 240 hearts in total. That's a whole lot of hearts!
STEP THREE
Cut ten lengths of string, approximately 60cm long. This will give you enough string to hang six hearts (x10) and tie it to the hoop while leaving a small gap between the hoop and the first heart.
STEP FOUR
To make the 3D hearts, take four hearts of the same colour and fold them in half down the centre - although they should be slightly folded from when you cut them out earlier. Add glue to one half of one heart, and stick it to the matching half of a second heart, and then repeat with a third heart.
STEP FIVE
Add a generous layer of glue down the centre of the heart and stick the string to it before gluing the fourth heart in place.
STEP SIX
Repeat steps four and five until you have six 3D hearts on one length of string, before tackling your second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on, until you have enough tumbling hearts to look lovely when hung from your hoop.
STEP SEVEN
After tying each length of heart-filled string to the hoop at equal distances apart, cut a further two pieces of string. Tie the end of one to one side of the hoop and the other end directly across from it. Repeat with the other piece of string perpendicular to the first one so that they cross. Finally, hang your gorgeous creation from your command hook.
