The Twelve Days of Christmas Crafts, Day 10: Simple Paper Hearts Garland

This isn't a holiday craft, per se, but its cheerful and festive and as such it fits in with the spirit of the season as I like to celebrate it. I suppose you could make this as a gift for someone; they can take it out and hang it up before a birthday party or celebration of any kind, really. I'm pretty sure this is something we'll keep up long after the Christmas tree comes down. In part that's because it takes me forever to do anything, like un-decorate at the appropriate time. But anything that adds a little color and cheer through the long, dark days of winter can't be bad, even if its a tangible sign of my procrastination.

This garland took me about half an hour to make, and it requires very few materials. Here's what you need:

8-10 sheets of colorful paper (construction paper will work, but I used a slightly heavier paper because I want it to last a little longer)
Scissors
Stapler
Hole punch
Ribbon or string

First cut your paper into strips, cutting along the longer side of the paper (so they'll be 11" long). I cut out five rows per page.

Next you make little heart shaped thingies with each strip. (I got a really high score on the verbal portion of my SATs. "Thingies". Wow.) First bend your paper over like so:

And then like so:

Secure your heart with a staple. (Note: I knew I'd be hanging my garland high enough up that the staples wouldn't be visible. Even if they are, I don't really care. But if you want a garland without them, you can secure your hearts with a glue stick, and hold the ends together with a paper clip til they dry. Then continue with additional steps as listed below.)

Punch a hole in the center of the base of the heart, about a quarter of an inch from the edge. I couldn't find my single hole puncher, the center hole of a three hole punch worked just fine.

Repeat these steps with all of your strips of paper.

I used yellow as well as pink.

Now start threading your hearts onto a ribbon or string.

Keep going...

Space the hearts evenly along the ribbon, and plump up any hearts that may have gotten flattened out while you were threading. Do this by gently pushing against the rounded bottoms where the paper bends.

And that's it. Jakie loved this project. He ran back and forth between helping Henry hang up our outside lights and me folding, stapling and hole punching. He jumped into my photo totally unsolicited.
Here's the finished garland once more:

Phew. Just three more days til Christmas and I still have a lot of sewing and making to do for gifts. Tomorrow we're making baked treats for the neighbors, which has become a tradition. Check in then to see what they're getting. And Happy Hanukah to some of you!