heart strings valentine tutorial

~ Valentine's day is one of my favorite crafting opportunities. For one thing most of us have had time to recover from our christmas crafting and are ready to get our hands dirty and pricked again. Also, spring is just around the corner and I find making mutliple valentines a great way to flush out my color pallette and give me some insight into what i am feeling for my spring pallette.
Valentines is also a great holiday to surprise family and friends with a valentine, it does always have to be for your boy/girl toy....although those are very fun too. So this years valentine I wanted to play with the idea of heart strings or a little string of hearts. It is sort of a take on an accordion style book design. (sort of in my brain)


I love how the hearts all pile on top of each other and then the bottom image or message can be revealed as the hearts are pulled up.


~Heart strings valentine tutorial



materials
scrap fabric
heat and bond lite
scissors
embroidery floss
needle
iron
stamp letters(optional)
stencil letters(optional)
small toggle button


Process
1. cut out your biggest heart.Attach heat and bond to the bottom of a scrap heavy to medium weight fabric large enough to accommodate your heart size. Fold in half and cut a heart anywhere from 3-6"according to how large you want your valentine. Attach a coordinating fabric to the front of your heart following the manufactures instructions for your heat and bond or (equivalent). trim excess fabric around the heart.


2.Repeat this process 3-6 times making a series of shrinking hearts. I really liked using light weight and transparent fabrics for the smaller hearts. A fun tip is once you have attached fabric to the bottom of your heart you can even leave a little 1/8 " edge when you trim that you can fray by hand.

3. gussy up your hearts. Of course this is where you have the most fun. I made multiples so I could really play around with different looks and ideas. I used decorative scraps of fabric backed with heat and bond to do all my adornments.You can add a valentine message here I liked it on the bottom heart. You can embroider, stamp, or stencil. I like the idea of them being quick with the stamping and stenciling or they can be more elaborate with lots needle work and embroidery.* leave a clean spot in the center of your base heart that you can cover with something later.

4. string up your hearts; first the base. Cut and thread approx 12-14 " of embroidery floss. knot one end.
stitch trough the center front of your base heart. This knot is what you will cover now with a little decorative scrap of fabric backed with heat and bond. Stitch back through the base. Make a knot close to the heart then another about 1" from there.


5. String the rest. make a knot close to the hearts then another a little less than and 1". As you attach each smaller heart make the >1" gap shorter by approx 1/8" each time.

6. attach your toggle button. This will act like a little handle to open the valentine with. here lies a great opportunity to use any little lonely precious toggle buttons

7. Dole out your heart strings

a beautiful day

~I wanted to share some very lovely thoughts and photos from this weekend's market. belle and burger spent a little over a year at the 08-09 Sunset valley Farmers Market and although we loved it we took quite a bit of time off for the next year. During that year our Market relocated to Barton springs mall parking lot. This move kinda horrified me (THE MALL!!)
I could not even really think of going back...to the mall. However, after kindling an inspiring friendship with my booth buddy, Cabbage moon, I started thinking of returning. We decided to give it a try around Christmas, I am thrilled to now admit I was terribly wrong. I love the cozier feel of the market in its new location. It has a lovely view of the Austin skyline and it is so far removed from the mall traffic that all the mall seems to do is block the crazy winds that tended to whip up every Saturday at Sunset Valley.

For the spring belle and burger plans on being out there every weekend.(barring inclement weather... btw it is now spring in austin...) I will post here our plans by the week. Once the summer heat sets in we will probably do the first and last Saturday of the month. I hope to see y'all out there !

....meet me at the market

~hey you Austin area local yokels come on out to the Barton Creek Farmers Market and pay me a visit.
Here is a peek at some of my newer stock . I have a few of these brand spankin' newly designed boat-neck T-shirts...i am loving these so comfortable and sassy. I am hoping to have at least 2 of the fancy full aprons. This here is one of 'em. My little prairie girl in blue apron I also have this lovely cotton obi mock wrap dress with appliqued orchids. This dress was made completely from re purposed fabrics and vintage scraps.This humming bird skirt will be there to....also made completely from re purposed and vintage fabrics Hope to see some of y'all out there!

tender hearts

~I have been feeling~oh so tender hearted this week.....almost to the point of adolescence. But just before I thought i would fall into a sink hole of my so called life...My sweet~heart saved me.
phew, Moving on .... I have been wraslin' with my thoughts on a valentine for this year . I think I have two but that's for next week.
~ Right now I wanted say hi and share this:
"faux-bois with embroidered heart" my latest piece that I have been working on. It is a gift so I am meandering over it endlessly, the words are my tribute to this very special Texas Sweet
It is so fun to learn new crafty arts; and I am a true rookie at embroidery.
I could not decide if I should make it a bed pillow or a framed piece(I'm leaning towards framing)
All the little flowers are made from piece milled hearts...broken into bits and reassembled as flowers and then there are some little swayback gap tooth hearts on the side.
I also thought I would share the links to may last 2 Valentine tutorials just in case you missed or have forgotten them

Here is the scrappy hearts tutorial, very easy and fun!!


This one is a little more involved but there is plenty of time to make it. I think it is one of my favorite projects I have shared; fabric valentine book



happy weekend to y'all
ps... one last look at one of many images I am using as research for a new custom dress...she loves her some unicorns....

new aprons; my wintry mix

~I have quite a few new aprons to share. I made a few custom ordered for gifts. Also I have been out at the Barton creek farmers market, and I always like to several aprons available there. I also had the chance to donate an apron for the KOOP radio sweet 16 birthday party auction at Antone's tomorrow night January 13Th So if you are local you should check it out! the event looks like a fun time and I love Kelly Willis~especially in this video form the "90s on Texas connection....wow







~The apron I made for the KOOP auction is a chicken apron with a coop ( of course I forgot to photograph it!) It is a little similar to this custom chicken family apron. This apron was made using only re purposed and vintage fabrics as well. I really love the little coop on the pocket. I made this apron while I was working on my my little house ornaments last month.





~The owl apron was also a custom apron and was also made entirely from vintage and re purposed fabrics.


~and was also made entirely from vintage and re purposed fabrics




The last one is my prairie girl apron. I am working on a few of these in different colors right now. I love this little bonnet girl fabric, Kg's grandma gave me some quilt pieces from his great grandma that are very similar to this square, that I treasure. So when I found the fabric at the local treat, Stitch lab I snatched some up. If you are in Austin and have not gone to stitch lab you are missing out of some treasured fabrics. While working on these aprons, I can feel the ushering in of my spring color palette . I still have this apron and will show you the other ones as I finish them.... toodles