For the Young & Old at Heart

Here is a little Valentine's project I did with my daughter's class when she was probably in 4th or 5th grade (she is now a junior in high school). It is a fun project for the students, but takes some extra prep work on the mom's part (you have to paint the boards and pound the nails in place).

Today I decided to make a grown up version of the project.  

Let me walk you through the steps so you can help your kids get started  

and then make one for yourself.

Begin with a board of your choosing - short, long, square, painted or natural.  It's up to you.

Cut a heart out of paper.  Place the heart on your board and with a pencil lightly make a mark about every inch all the way around the outside edge of your heart.  Lift your pattern off the board.  Using small nails (about an inch in length), hammer the nails on the pencil marks.  Only hammer the nails in far enough to hold them in place.  Also be sure to keep them all at the same height.

Once your nails are in place you can begin to wrap the nails.  In the kids project I used a shiny silver floral wire and fluffy yarn.  For the grown up version I decided to use rusty wire and jute, both items I had on hand.  A wire that is about 26 gauge is ideal for this project.  Begin by securing your wire around one of the nails.  I did this by twisting the end of the wire around the nail and then around the wire.  Start to wrap your wire around the nails.  Move from one nail to the next, sort of in a figure eight pattern, making sure to wrap the wire at least once around each nail.

Once you get back to where you started - don't stop, keep wrapping the wire all around your heart several more times, pushing it down lightly on the nails.  When you are satisfied with the amount of wire on the nails, you can add another type of wrap.  Such as yarn, ribbon, jute or even another color wire.  For this particular project  I chose to use jute. Tie the jute to one of the nails and begin to wrap it around the nails, again, moving all the way around your heart.

You can embellish your board by modge podging some words of love or adding other little trinkets and treasures. 

(Oh, I added instant coffee to my modge podge to give it an antiqued look - I just love that look!)

Some old sheet music and the words 

"A Song of the Heart can never be caged,"

a piece of burlap  and rusty washer complete the look of my heart board.

 My finished project - don't you just love it! 

Go make one of your own.....I'd love to know how it turns out.