How To Make DIY Heart Crowns for Valentine’s Day

We made stained glass heart crowns the other day as a Valentine craft, using the same technique as our flower crowns from last spring.

Instead of flower petals, though, we used colored tissue paper—both the little heart shapes you see here as well as geometric shapes—and added extra decorations to the crowns with metallic drawings and doodles.

They turned out great!

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Daphne has been calling herself the Queen of Hearts since. And making royal decrees that usually end in giggles.

It’s been a month of snow days and illness here. Which means it’s also been a month of pretend play, fort building, and art activities (between snow play and doctor visits). I don’t think the girls have both been in school on the same day since before Christmas!

Here’s how we made the heart crowns… (in case your kiddos would enjoy being the kings and queens of hearts, too!)

How To Make Heart Crowns

MATERIALS

• 1 sheet of poster board (makes 4-5 crowns)—we used black but you could use any color
• White or metallic drawing tools, such as crayons, colored pencils, or paint sticks
• X-Acto knife or other utility knife
• Cardboard or a self-healing cutting mat
• Transparent contact paper (sticky-back plastic)*
• Scissors
• Colored tissue paper
• Heart-shaped paper punch (optional)
• Stapler or tape

*You can usually find contact paper in the aisle with the shelf liners in the grocery store or drug store.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cut tissue paper

First, cut or tear your colored tissue paper into small pieces. If you have a heart paper punch, you can punch out tissue paper hearts as well (Daphne loved doing this!).

2. Draw crown outline

Next, draw your crowns on the poster board. Start with one along one of the short edges. I did this freehand and have these tips for you:

• Draw a large-ish 2-3 inch heart in the center of the crown with the bottom tip of the heart about an inch above the bottom of the poster board.
• Add smaller hearts or other shapes on either side of the central heart.
• Now trace around the hearts or shapes, leaving about a half inch border as shown above. Then extend the crowns out to the edges of the poster board.

Repeat, if desired, until you have 4-5 crowns on the poster board (or just do the one).

3. Cut out hearts

Now, use an X-Acto knife to cut out the hearts (protect your table with cardboard or a cutting mat first).

4. Lay contact paper

Cover the openings with contact paper. I pressed one large piece of contact paper down the center of the poster board, covering all the cut-outs.

5. Cut out crowns

Cut out the crowns from the poster board. Use scissors and follow the outlines you drew earlier.

6. Place tissue paper pieces

Press the colored tissue paper pieces to the sticky contact paper.

Make any design you like with the colored tissue paper! Besides our art tissue paper, we used a couple of patterned tissue papers from the gift wrap section of the store.

7. Decorate the heart crowns

Add drawings and doodles to decorate your crowns! We used metallic paint sticks on our black crowns.

The metallic really shows up great on the black. White would work, too. And if you make your crown with white poster board, you can of course use any colors.

8. Properly size (and staple) heart crowns 

When your child is finished decorating the crown, wrap it around his/her head to determine size, then staple the ends together.

Admire in the light with the sun shining through the stained glass hearts… and admire on your little king or queen of hearts…

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