Valentines day paper crafts with recycled books

Valentines day paper crafts using books and other household objects

Since valentines day is coming up soon, I thought I would share with you some ideas for different valentines day paper crafts you can try, including cards, bunting and a garland. The projects  are all made from paper, and other things you can find around the house.

Valentines day cards using household objects

Here are a few ideas for valentines day cards to make using different household objects. I used recycled books, crayons, paper clips, candles and matches to make these cards.

I had a lot of fun looking up and copying different typefaces to make the lettering. You could always print or trace or stencil the text if you aren’t comfortable doing it by hand.

My first few efforts in sticking the various objects to the cards didn’t turn out so well. The glue I used made the card warp, and the heavier objects didn’t stick securely enough. After a little experimentation, I decided to glue the objects to a seperate bit of card with a gluegun to form the heart. I then glued this heart shape as one piece to the final card.

 

Recycled paper valentines day bunting

This bunting is made out of coloured paper, a recycled book, and some ribbon.

To make this bunting simply follow these instructions :

1. Mark out heart shapes by folding a page of paper from a recycled book in half, and drawing on half of the heart shape. This can be as simple or as complicated as you want. Be imaginative, try mixing it up and trying different patterns. Try using newspaper if you don’t have any books you want to cut up.

2. Cut the heart shapes using scissors or a scalpel

3. Glue the heart shapes onto the coloured paper, using spray glue. I used A4 sheets cut in half, so A5 sized sheets. You could use one colour, or many different colours to make rainbow bunting.

4. Sew the pages to the ribbon. I did this by sewing one continuous line along the ribbon with a sewing machine attaching the flags at evenly spaced intervals as I went. I sewed the ribbon on the front of each paper flag, leaving a small gap above it.

And thats it! It’s pretty simple, but by experimenting with different shapes for the hearts, you can make some really beautiful bunting.

Recycled paper valentines day garland

This garland is even simpler than the bunting to make. Here is how to do it:

1. Cut out heart shapes from coloured paper and recycled book pages. You could make them all the same size, or different sizes, as I did here. If you make different sizes, make sure you cut one coloured paper heart the same size as each recycled paper heart. To make this step even simpler, you could use a heart shaped hole punch if you have one.

2. Glue the two hearts, one of recycled paper, and one of coloured paper, to each other, with a piece of string running down the middle. This is a really similar method that I used to make the paint sample garlands.

This is definitely the simplest of these valentines day paper crafts. It’s so easy, you could easily do it with little ones. Experiment with different colours, sizes, and papers. You could also try the same idea with other shapes, like stars or flowers or circles. Line lots of garlands up to decorate a wall, window or doorway. You could also make or hang them horizontaly, rather than vertically.

I hope you enjoy these valentines day paper crafts. Let me know what you think of the different ideas, and how they work out for you if you try them!