Valentine Salt Dough Heart Garland

I'm not one of those bloggers who changes my decor all that often. I basically like to get something in a spot and leave it there to be dusted around.

Every once in a while the mood strikes me to make something to suit the upcoming occasion, which in this case is Valentines Day unless you want me to do a little Ground Hogs Day decor? 

 

Ummmm, no, I don't think so. 

I was spying all sorts of cute Valentine crafts and the ones I seemed most drawn too were little envelopes. They required scant artistic ability, and I happened to have a whole box of tiny envelopes. Why, I don't know, garage sale a lifetime ago probably.

At Christmas I made salt dough ornaments and really enjoyed what is basically like playing in clay, so I decided to make another batch and use the variety of heart shaped cookie cutters I have, for my version of conversation hearts.

I added red food coloring right to the dough, and apparently skipped over the part of taking any rolling of the dough action shots. I think you can use your imagination to picture what that looks like. 

I also wanted some gray hearts as well, not black because I'm told black hearts are cold and do not spell love. Certainly nothing like my own heart.

Black paste coloring would have been the way to go but I didn't have any of that, liquid worked decent. I could have painted the hearts after baking to any color, but this was sort of an experiment, plus I'm an impatient crafter and wanted to complete the project in warp speed.

The end of a chopstick was used to make double holes so the red and white twine I intended to use would thread easily through. That didn't actually happen - the easily part- some of my holes were not well made.

I had to thread the twine onto a large needle and poke them through. More time consuming than I would have liked.

My salt dough is baked at my ovens lowest temp, which is 250*, for 3 hours, then I turn the oven off and just leave the pan in there till I'm ready to get back to the project.  You can also air dry them.

An old set of stamps was used to put valentine-ish sayings on, and I did this before baking. It could also be done using a stamp pad after, but I wanted indentations in the hearts.

I also sanded the baked items with a sanding block to knock down any rough spots after they were cooled.

The whole color scheme was decided because I had a Christmas fabric fat stack that I didn't use, and since I'm not someone who sews, having fabric around to pick from isn't really an option.

I thought the black, red and white would work fine so I cut out some small hearts as well as thin strips to tie on between some of the hearts but not all.

One Elmers Glue stick provided fast stick-um on the backs of the hearts, and colored pencils supplied the easy broken lines.

You might notice that there is white in the cracks and crevices. I waxed the hearts with white lime wax, and on the white hearts I used a sharpie.

The whole project took more time than I thought because when it came time to thread and space them measuring was involved and I hadn't made an even amount of envelopes or hearts.

The garland ended up being 7 1/2 feet long, and it's nothing over the top, just a sweet something something to let people know Valentines Day is coming.

 

 

The items needed:

Salt Dough recipe (below)

Food Coloring or Paint

Very small amount of fabric

Little envelopes 

Twine

Red and Black pencils or whatever

 1 amazing Elmers Glue Stick 

and if you want to wax them like mine, some lime wax, otherwise I think I would still use maybe a clear wax as it gives them a bit of a finished sheen.

Salt Dough Recipe's are all over the internet, they are not rocket science either, but below is the one I use.

 

Salt Dough: 

1 rounded cup of flour (I use regular unbleached)

1 cup water (add more flour if too runny, or don't add all the water at once to reach a consistency you like)

1/2 cup salt

 

Mix, roll, cut out, place on parchment paper in 250* oven for 3 hours. 

If you add paint, use a little less water, and mix the paint with the water before hand so it blends in easy. Knead the dough till it feels soft and pliable. It should not be sticky at all.

 

For my Christmas ornaments I also added 1/2 cup of white Fusion Mineral Paint, they came out slightly whiter.