Make a last-minute hanging heart for Valentine's Day - from almost nothing!

Forgotten to buy, or make, a card? Running out of time? No craft materials on hand? I'm not necessarily saying any or all of the above apply to me, but I'm on holiday in Vietnam, I didn't bring a card with me, and Valentine's Day isn't celebrated here. I did have an old newspaper, scissors and thread, so I made a hanging heart. 

I folded a piece of paper, cut a heart shape on the fold, then used that as a template to cut more.

I stitched them together up the centre line, leaving a long length of thread to hang the charming finished item.

Went down rather well.

Valentines: handmade with love

Hearts are the symbols of Valentine's Day. One shape, so many possibilities...

Sometimes, keeping it simple has more impact. It's really easy to make your own Valentine card. 

All you need to do is cut out a heart shape (template below) from whatever you want – fabric, wrapping paper, coloured card, corrugated cardboard, a picture in a magazine, an online print-out, your own photo/s – stick it to a blank card (decorating with a button, ribbon, petals, sequins).

Or stick on several smaller hearts of the same size, or layer smaller and smaller hearts on top of one another...

A good way to come up with your finished design is to cut some hearts from scrap paper and play around with layouts and sizes until you're satisfied. Then cut out the heart shapes you'll use on your card.

Add a heartfelt, handwritten message... what could be more meaningful for the one you love? (My own Valentine this year features a picture cut from a magazine, plus a paper heart; no previews here though.)

You can also cut heart shapes and string them horizontally, like these map hearts, or vertically.

And if you want to give a present too, how about a fabric heart? Filled with lavender, they can be moth-repellers, drawer scenters, keyrings, hanging decorations, and you can, of course, attach them to a card. Cut two hearts from fabric. Stitch them right sides together, leaving a gap for filling, and enclosing the ends of a ribbon (or string, or yarn) loop, then turn inside out. Fill with lavender, rose petals, cotton wool, cut-up old tights or soft toy filling, and stitch the opening closed. See the heart template below; enlarge to your chosen size.

Here's an example of instructions that I wrote for Hearst Magazines' Allaboutyou.com: a spotted heart card with gingham ribbon bow.

















And here's a variation on the fabric heart: sheer fabric machined together without being turned inside out, and filled with rose petals, and trimmed with a tiny heart and mother-of-pearl button.

Folding paper - so very festive: Christmas papercrafts

Origami is apparently the new craft trend. I first tried it when I was about eight, with an American book with a woman wearing a sombrero-type hat festooned with beautiful paper flowers. This taught me how to fold a waterlily, which I've never forgotten. It comes in very handy with napkins.

Given that Hobbycraft says sales of origami paper are up by 20% on 2015, I didn't expect to have to ask a sales assistant to find some paper for me! First on my (never-ending, ever-growing) list of things to make was this origami Santa.

And as you can see from the picture, running a fingernail along the folds you make, so that they're sharp, is very important. And as you can also see, I didn't do that, as I was making it on my knee while watching the video on my laptop.

I also wanted to make lots of paper stars, having seen them as a cut-out internally illuminated version in Sweden (in real life and on TV) in everyone's windows at Christmas. Here's the first attempt, made watching this video. This isn't origami because it uses scissors, but it's a lot simpler than the Santa! I'll be making more of these, sticking them together in pairs, and stringing them on garlands.

Making your own Christmas decorations with paper is appealing because it's cheap and easy to get hold of (plain white A4 can be spectacular), so it doesn't really matter if you go wrong. I wrote about Christmas papercrafts to make with kids for Saga: all the classics, including paper chains and snowflakes.

Licking and sticking

Stamps are little scraps of social history, and they're miniature works of art, too. I recently visited Stanley Gibbons HQ in the Strand, ahead of Stampex, the annual stamp-collecting show, in its 60th year.
I used to collect stamps as a child, and this event was a real memory-jogger, surfacing recollections of stamp hinges, and soaking squares of envelope in little bowls of water to get the stamps off.
On display was the original artwork for some Royal Mail stamps including the butterflies collection from 2013.

But stamps aren't just for sticking on letters or collecting in albums. Suzanne, of Art Stamped, is a craft artist who creates contemporary artworks using postage stamps. She was on hand to help me create a card design with stamps. She'd brought along a selection of stamps, themed by colours and subjects, such as hearts and animals. And she'll be showing a jungle-themed piece at Stampex.

With an anniversary coming up, I went for a green colour theme with the occasional love stamp. Suzanne took a shot of me as I planned and pondered my design.

And here's the finished card: not too shabby considering I spent about five minutes on it...

I finally found a sewing box!

It's a classic wooden concertina-drawer type, exactly the type I didn't want to pay John Lewis's prices to acquire. But I found this one in a local vintage shop (Trash or Treasure in Maidstone) for just a tenner.
Everything that was in the black and pink spotted cardboard box that previously held my sewing stuff fits in, plus the buttons that were in a plastic box. And my fabric scissors.
For that price I could overlook the coffee cup and fading on one side, because I had plans...

Some weeks earlier I 'came across' (ie, rummaged through the rubbish to find) some old sewing patterns outside a shop in Canterbury (The Sewing Shop). None of them had all its components so I couldn't actually use them to make the garments illustrated. However, I knew they would come in handy so I parked them on a shelf...

And patterns and sewing box came together. I've never tried decoupage before - does it show? I just cut random shapes and stuck them in an overlappingly random fashion all over the top of the box with PVA glue from Cowling & Wilcox, the handy art supplies shop across the road from work. I just need to trim the edges. Oh, and run a scalpel along the edge of the lids - because I've stuck them down!

Things I'd like to make...

This, of course, is a potentially endless list, but at the very front of my mind are the curled paper (or is that quilled paper?) rings that Kirstie Allsopp made on Kirstie's Handmade Britain (with original inspiration and practical help from Phiona Richards at Rare Notions. Haven't quite got round to it yet but I have bought the ring blanks (and couldn't resist making a big cocktail ring with a big glued-on silvery glass bead - the work of minutes, literally).
Here's how to make the paper rose ring above