Shabby Vintage Heart

I'm always looking for ways to use up the last scraps of paper in a way that I can really enjoy. After making a passel of cards from my Virginia Cupcards {to go} kit I had some paper left, varying in size from 6x6 to about 3x3. 

Time to make a Shabby Vintage Heart.

I saw several projects like this on Pinterest. The one I liked best was from Linda Albrecht and she said that this is "her version" so I don't know who to credit originally. These are a common valentines craft you make in Elementary school, just grown up a little; and they're a load of fun to make. 

Did I mention that they are easy??? Seriously easy, I think we made the construction paper kind in first grade.

Directions:

Cut your hearts. Fold your largest paper in half and cut out an ear shape. I used decorative edged scissors. 

To make my life easier - I'm rubbish at eye-balling sizes - I traced the last heart half on the next smallest piece of paper and then cut inside that line. This insured the hearts would be graduated in size. I still ended up doing a little trimming but it was a lot less then it would have been. Don't worry about the crease, you actually need it. 

Glitter the edges. I Mod Podged the edges with a paint brush and then dipped them in a pile of glitter. A word about glitter, you want something bold and retro, like silver or gold, not clear or super-fine. I tried them all, with a variety of glues and old-school is best.

Cut pattern tissue (or any tissue, really) into two inch strips. 

Run a line of dry adhesive around the edge of your heart about four inches at a time and crumple and pleat your tissue as desired.

Turn it over and look at the front while doing this or you'll get weird flat spots... trust me.

Now you're done. The back is quite the mess though. 

If you're paranoid like me, cover it up with a piece of scrap cardstock. This meets several needs. One, it sandwiches in all that tissue, making sure it's stuck down and two it makes a smoother back to run through your sewing machine. Since I'm a bit of a klutzy terror on my best days it seemed like a good idea to minimize tearing risks.

Stack your hearts by size and glue them together with a teeny bit of adhesive at the crease.

Sew them together for prettiness and strength.

Ta-Da!

Now you can fold them up a bit to get a nice 3D thing going.

Add a pretty flower or other embellishment and you're done.

You can trim the tissue for a nice regular, even edge, but I like my stuff a little bit messy so I didn't.

This would look great if you mixed in book pages or collaged together the top sheet. 

I was happy to keep it simple.

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