Valentines wooden heart ... ...

This is a quick and easy to make valentines gift, all you need is some sticks, glue (a glue gun is probably best) something to help you make the shape (I used a large  cookie cutter) and some ribbon or string to hang it with.

You don't have to use a mould, but it is much easier to keep it all together while you work out how many sticks you need, I also found it handy to have a mould when gluing it together.


 This is what you are aiming for (or similar) -

The big stick is  apiece of pear wood

 It's up to you how you go about making this, I used a larger stick for the middle of the heart so that I could add mine and my wife's initials, big softy that I am :-)

Basically all you do is fill the mould (cookie cutter) with sections of stick the same length, I made mine about an inch long, it doesn't have to be too precise.

The sticks and cookie cutter -

Already glued but you can see what I did.

Another picture to show the thickness -

I used some eucalyptus sticks, but anything will do.

You can glue the sticks as you go, but I found that it was easier to glue the sticks with them already in the right shape, I kind of cheated by squirting glue from the glue gun into the gaps on what was the back of the heart, that way you don't see the glue from the front, keeping it in the mould makes it much less fiddly.

I wanted a larger piece of wood in the middle so that I could add a little extra to the heart, making it a little more personal. I drew our initials in pencil on the thicker part so that I could use my pyrography tool to burn the wood, if you don't have a pyrography tool you could use a soldering iron, or you can paint it, or use pens, it's up to you.

Pencil outlines - 

Not the neatest of writing.

With the pencil lines burned into the wood -

Now it just needs something for it to hang on.

It's done, well almost now it just needs something, like a loop of string, or in this case ribbon so that it can be hung on a wall, and for that all you need to do is glue the ribbon/string onto the back of the heart.

And you should end up with something like this - 

Easy peasy.

There you have it, a great handmade valentines present, takes hardly any time to make and costs next to nothing, but it's not about how much things cost, it's about the effort you put into it, the effort and though that went into making a very personal valentines gift for the special person in your life, it has to be better than getting a bunch of flowers from the local garage.

Thanks for reading.