Valentine’s Day is almost here but you still have plenty of time to make some Valentine’s Day crafts with your kids. Hearts, sparkles, and streamers make this heart wand a craft with plenty of kid appeal.
You can find most of the materials you need for this craft around your house or at the dollar store:
To make your heart wand, you’ll need: wire, wire cutters/pliers, tissue paper, Mod Podge (I used the sparkle one but you can use plain and add glitter in separately. Instead of the Mod Podge, you can use white glue that you have watered down), foam brush, waxed paper, a stick or a dowel of some sort (I used a chopstick), duct tape, scissors, beads (optional), jingle bells (optional), fake rhinestones (optional). You may also want some paints, paintbrushes, and fine-tipped permanent markers.
Note: If you leave the stick off of this, you can make it into a suncatcher for your window instead!
Your kids will need your help to get the basic frame of the wand put together. Form a heart shape out of the wire, leaving a length of wire at the base of the heart so you can twist the shape closed and wind the leftover wire around one end of the stick. Use the pliers to flatten the ends of the wire down and make sure that no sharp points are sticking out.
Cover the stick with duct tape, concentrating a little bit extra tape in the area where the wire is. This helps both decorate the stick and cover the wire. Alternatively, you could have the kids paint and decorate the stick with glitter and then only cover the section of the stick where the wire is with the tape. Do not add the ribbons at this point like I did. Trust me – it would get very messy for the kids!
Now it’s time to create the pretty heart portion of the wand. Cut or tear pretty pieces of tissue paper for gluing to the wire frame. The kids can also use white tissue paper that they paint or colour with the permanent markers (or both). Just remember that the tissue paper is fragile and they will need to use a gentle touch. Another option is to glue the white tissue paper to the frame, let it dry, and then paint or colour once it’s a bit stronger.
For gluing the paper to the frame, you’ll want to have the kids working on a piece of waxed paper. There is no way to neatly apply the Mod Podge for this craft! The waxed paper protects the work surface and it’s one of the easiest materials to simply peel away from the glue covered project without ruining it. If you have a silicone craft mat, that would also work.
I’ve found the easiest way to get started is by brushing glue over the entire wire frame. Then start laying down small pieces of the tissue paper, overlapping them as you go, and adding more glue as you go to adhere them to each other. It’s perfectly okay for and in fact desirable for the paper to overlap the edges of the heart. You’ll trim the excess off later.
Once you have the heart covered with tissue paper, put a layer of the glue right over the top of the whole thing to seal it. If you’re using glitter, this is the time to sprinkle it on! Let it dry for a bit and then flip it over to the other side and glue on more pieces of tissue paper to cover that side too. Again, apply a coat of glue over the whole thing to seal it. This time it needs to dry thoroughly – at least for a few hours or overnight. Once it’s dry, it should be fairly sturdy but if not, feel free to add another layer or two of tissue paper. Now is the time to trim off any excess paper.
Now you’re ready to add the finishing touches. The heart isn’t quite sparkly enough for your little one? Glue a few rhinestones onto it! Tie or glue streamers of ribbons on to the stick (do this now – not before gluing on the tissue paper like I did!) and string some beads and bells on to some of them if you want. Let the kids use their creativity and decorate to their hearts’ content!
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