by Mindy Slettedahl
Crafting around holidays has become a bit of a tradition for my family. I try to find crafts we can make together and use as seasonal decor: pumpkins in the fall, ornaments at Christmas, suncatchers in spring and summer…it also helps me feel better about not keeping the piles and piles of crafts they come home with.
Several years ago my girls and I made Swedish hearts out of felt for Valentine’s day and fell in love with them. The hearts quickly became a favorite toy and I often found my little girls unweaving and reweaving them back together. Traditionally they are made as Christmas ornaments, but I think they are sweet for Valentine’s day and brighten up the house after putting all the Christmas decor away.
Swedish hearts are made by weaving 2 pieces of colored paper, fabric, or felt together to create a small heart shaped basket. This year we used colorful scrapbook paper for a bright and colorful look. Personally I like the simplicity of the more solid colors best. I did a quick google search and found a simple template to get us started with cutting our paper. Here are video tutorials for a paper heart design and one for a felt heart design.
The trick when weaving is instead of the basic over/under, you weave through and around each of the loops you cut. This creates the basket. After cutting and weaving the first heart the girls, 11 and 9, got the hang of it, and started cutting their own designs, we quickly had a small pile. To simplify for my 4 year old, big sisters helped him weave a simple heart together and we worked on cutting skills.
After cleaning up (when the kids lost interest), I threaded the hearts on some string and hung them up to decorate our front entry. The kids love seeing their creations displayed in our house and I’m planning on filling their hearts with candy for a fun Valentine’s surprise.
Mindy Slettedahl is the mom of three sweet kids and wife of Seth. She recently started Made New Creative knits and enjoys reading, crafting, baking and spontaneous kitchen dance parties.