Swedish woven paper heart basket.
I originally made these with my 4th and 5th grade students several weeks ago around the time of Santa Lucia, when we were talking about Swedish traditions. I have my colleague to thank for finding this
Swedish heart tutorial and printable template at the Crafty Cafe. The instructions were a bit tricky to follow, we found, so I'm going to write my own here, in the hope that they might be clearer (or maybe not).
Once we figured them out and got the hang of it, they were so easy and quite addictive! Princess Pea and I then made several more to put little goodies in for friends and colleagues for holiday treats. This latest one will be a Valentine for Princess Pea's little friend who is moving away soon. Haven't yet decided what to fill it with (right now there's just a bunch of foam hearts in it). Any suggestions?
So to make them, I'd suggest printing out the template linked above, at least to start out until you get the hang of the necessary proportions. (If you choose to free-hand it instead, it's important to make sure the slits are slightly longer than the width of the whole shape.) Make sure that you fold your paper in half and line up the straight edge along the fold. Then use the template to trace and cut out the shapes from two different papers and cut the slits as shown.
Next comes the weaving part, which is the part that was tricky at first. I'll try to explain it with our flowery and red papers. Take the
far right 'arm' of the
flowery paper and insert
into the
far left arm of the
red paper. Then take the
middle arm of the
red paper and insert into the
far right arm of the
flowery paper. Then take the
far right arm of the
flowery paper and insert it
into the
far right arm of the
red paper. Slide it along towards the top of the heart.
At this point you should have the first (far right) arm of the flowery paper woven through all three arms of the red paper. Note that each time, you insert the arm of one
into the arm of the other, don't just go front to back or else you won't end up with a 'pocket' that opens in the end. (This is where we went wrong at first.)
Then you take the
middle arm of the
flowery paper and do the same in reverse: The
far left arm of the
red paper into the
middle arm of the
flowery paper; the
middle arm of the
flowery paper into the
middle arm of the
red paper; and the
far right arm of the
red paper into the
middle arm of the
flowery paper.
And finally, do the reverse with the
far left arm of the
flowery paper. The last one is a bit tricky, so you have to do it carefully.
This wasn't a craft that Princess Pea was able to make on her own, of course, but she traced and cut out the papers and we did the weaving together until it got too hard and then I finished it off. And she loved getting to use the hole punch and stringing the ribbon through to make a little hanger for it.
Happy Valentine's Day!
This project is featured in a book available at Hands On: As We Grow as part of The Heart Project, a fundraiser to support the American Heart Association. Please consider ordering a copy of this book full of beautiful heart-themed art and craft projects with links to tutorials (available as both a printed book and as an e-book). All proceeds will be donated to the AHA.
Now, join us for our Valentine Ideas blog hop! Share your favourite Valentine ideas here and please include our button or a text link back so your readers can find us:
Posts
