Instead of traditional red and pink Valentine’s Day decorations, this year I wanted to decorate using materials that were more natural, textured, and well, subtle. Inspired by the natural wool colors in my pom-pom wreath, I decided to make a felt heart garland for the fireplace.

It’s a super easy and inexpensive project (materials cost around $3 for the felt and embroidery floss. I already had the other materials).

What you’ll need:

Felt sheets in a variety of colors. I got mine at Michael’s for 39 cents per sheet and used three sheets of charcoal gray, three sheets of natural, and one sheet of red.

Heart shapes template. I used the free printable heart set #2 and set #3 from firstpalette.com

One skein of red embroidery floss

Glue gun and glue

3 yards of worsted weight yarn. I used Paton’s Classic Wool in natural marle.

Sewing pins

Embroidery needle

Instructions:

Print out six sheets of the large size heart template (three for the gray and three for the natural felts) and one sheet of the small heart template (for the red felt). Pin a template sheet to a felt sheet, placing one or two pins through each heart. Cut out each heart.

Using the glue gun, glue a small red heart to nine of the natural color hearts. Using the red embroidery floss, stitch around three of the gray hearts about a 1/4″ from the edge. Do not separate the floss into an individual strand or the red won’t stand out on the gray background.

Lay out the hearts prior to stringing them on the yarn. Starting with a gray heart, order the colors as follows:

gray

natural with red

gray

natural

Repeat, randomly placing the three gray hearts with red stitching.

Using the embroidery floss (again, do not separate the floss) and needle, poke a hole through each heart about 1/4″ below the V. Pull through about 6″ of floss, cut floss and tie a knot to create a loop. String each heart onto the yarn.

Finally, it’s time to hang your garland. You can use the little 3M removable hooks, but I always use clear packing tape.

And you’re finished! The felt hearts are so cute, and if you want to repurpose them, just take them off the worsted yarn. They’d be adorable hanging on a Christmas tree or as a tag for wrapping a handmade gift.

Enjoy and happy crafting!

PS. If hearts aren’t your thing, my Anthro- inspired felt garland would look great in the gray/ natural/ red colorway.

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Need a fun Galentine’s / Valentine’s gift? My bestselling Leslie Knope compliments mug can be found in my Etsy shop, and a set of free printable Galentine’s gift tags can be downloaded here.

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