DIY Valetine’s Day Decor Hearts

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Giant DIY Valentine’s Day Decor Hearts

Ok friends, I’m in love. I know it’s Valentine’s Day and I am supposed to be in love with the Mr. (and I am) but I’m so seriously in love with some stencils. The kind of love where you might soon tell me to tone it down a notch on the buffalo check stencil projects and you’ve heard enough already about the plaid shirt stencil in my life. Sorry in advance. I did my first project on these DIY Valentine’s Day decor hearts and the love affair is on. Big thanks to Old Sign Stencils for providing the amazing stencils. This post also contains affiliate links, which means should you make a purchase I may receive a small commission.

In all honesty, my man deserves all the credit. I told him my idea to cut giant hearts for our mantel and he lovingly obliged and humored me by helping to cut them out. I’d rather have power tools and quality time like this over diamonds any day. Here is the run down on how he made these cutie patootie hearts for our mantel. First, I drew a pattern using wrapping paper. I had to be sure and make a thick point at the bottom of the heart so the weight of the heart wouldn’t break it from its base. The base is wide enough and tall enough to support the heart standing up in the base board. We traced three hearts on thin wood. My hubs cut them out with a jigsaw. He is so awesome.

For the base we used a 2X6 board and cut two long grooves in the board with a table saw (we did two so you could stagger the cut outs if you want), making sure the groove was wide enough to accept the wood heart base, but not too big to support it upright. The ideal blade for this cut would be a dado blade, we didn’t use one, but would if we made a similar project in the future.

I sanded the hearts down and added a base coat of white chalky paint. Next came the fun part. I went on a date with my new stencils, we sat together and watched another episode of Call the Midwife on Netflix and I painted one heart with the buffalo check stencil and another with the plaid shirt stencil. You can get the stencils from Donna of Funky Junk blog fame (I adore everything she does!) at her Old Sign Stencils shop here. For the third heart I dry brushed some strokes onto the heart for movement and darkened up the edges for a nice pop. The stencils come with directions on how to overlap the stencil properly when painting a large surface and the pattern was really easy to follow. I used a dry chip brush to apply paint, I should have used my stencil brush…next time! (stencil tips here, should listen to my own advice, lol!)

To dress up the mantel even more I added a quick and easy Valentine’s banner that I cut from craft paper wrapping paper. I hand lettered Love is all you need in chalk and went over it with black paint, highlighting it with chalk when dry. Then banner is just taped up in a wavy manner for fun.

For even more options in the future we used the left over 2 X 6 base to make a few small bases so I can display the hearts individually later if I want. I am thinking this idea would be cute for all kinds of holiday cutouts…eggs, trees, flowers, spooky cats, I could go on. What do you think? Anybody up for making one of these, I always want to know what you guys think, so chime in below! Until the next project comes I will be dreaming of my new loves and all the exciting things we will build together. 🙂 Don’t forget to pin and save. For more inspiration on how to use these stencils visit Old Sign Stencils on Facebook or Instagram.