All of us here at DSC are loving the floral heart decorations that Dollar Tree has this year for Valentine’s Day. We’ve all been feeling inspired by them, and the other day I decided to turn a package of them into something cute and Valentine-y to hang on the wall. After a little playing and brainstorming I came up with these vertical Valentine banners – and it was super easy!

Project estimate:

• Floral heart embellishments, $1
• Wide ribbon, on hand or $1 and up
• Bamboo skewer, on hand
• Felt, on hand or about 30¢/sheet
• Baker’s twine, on hand or about $2 and up
• Glue, on hand

Total: $1 and up

The hearts come in packages of six, so one package will make two banners that each have three hearts. You could also make three banners with two hearts, or six banners with single hearts – whatever size banners makes you happy! Smaller, single-heart banners would even make nice Valentine gifts for friends or coworkers.

Based on how many hearts you are using, figure out how long you want your ribbon to be. Remember to add about 1/2 inch to the top to allow for gluing each banner around the skewer for hanging. Fold the bottoms of the ribbons in half and trim at an angle to give them a finished look. I used some wide grosgrain ribbon that I found on clearance for 75¢ a roll a few days after Christmas!

To make the red hearts stand out against the red ribbon, I added a white border to each heart.  My initial thought was to do this by gluing the hearts to white felt, then cutting around them to leave a thin white border.  But, I didn’t have any white felt on hand.  I did, however, have white yarn, so I glued the hearts to paper and then glued a yarn border around each.  When the glue dried I carefully trimmed around the yarn.  You can use either method, but I recommend the felt because it would have made this project much quicker and easier!

Cut the bamboo skewer into sections just wider than the ribbon. Center the skewer at the top end of the ribbon and wrap it around, gluing into place. (The side with the glued-down flap will be the back of the banner – make sure you remember to flip it over before you move on to adding embellishments!)  Tie a short length of baker’s twine around the protruding ends of the skewer on each side of the banner. Add a drop of glue to each knot just to be sure it doesn’t come loose or slip off the end of the skewer.

On the front side of the banner, arrange the hearts where you want them to be and glue into place. Once all of the glue is dry, your banners are ready to hang!