How to Make Music-Covered Hearts for Valentine's Day: A Tutorial

Yesterday for our Tablescape Thursday, I shared a Valentine's Day table setting with a sweet, romantic easy-to-make centerpiece.  I had been plotting thinking for some time about creating a willowy little "tree" with the River Birch branches I'm always picking up from my front yard.  

I decided to decorate my little birch tree with hearts so I checked several places online.  During my search I came across some cute, papier-machéd, music covered hearts and I loved the look, but not so much the price, especially since  I knew I would need a good many to fill my tree.    

So, I began thinking about how I could make hearts similar to those I had seen online.  I really didn't want to  papier-maché the hearts so I decided to shop the discount stores for inexpensive, small hearts for decoupaging.  I'm still sort of new to this decoupaging thing, having just tried it out for the first time back around Halloween when I decoupaged a couple of pumpkins in THIS post and THIS post.  But I figured, if you can decoupage pumpkins, why not little hearts.

I headed off to Dollar Tree and found some small, plastic "box" hearts that were about the size I wanted.  But the shape just wasn't quite right...they were definitely boxy.  

Next up, Big Lots, where I encountered a she-car with eyelashes in the parking lot.   You can see her at the end of THIS post. 

Inside Big Lots I found just what I needed and they were only $3 for a dozen!  Awesome!  This was looking promising!   I also bought them in the smaller size.  I didn't use those but I think I'll keep them...they may come in handy for a future project one day.

Once back home, I googled sheet music and found several places online with sheet music images.  I printed them off and cut them up in to varying sizes/pieces.

Pssst:  If you would like your sheet music to have an aged look, you may wish to stain the paper with tea leaves or use another aging method prior to cutting it up

Then it was time to get my Mod Podge on.  Mod Podge (MP) and I are old friends after our pumpkin days together.  I didn't try to match things up, just applied the MP on the back of each little piece of paper and stuck it on the heart.  I did this while listening to books and pod casts online, so it actually went pretty fast.

Once I had each heart covered with music, I put a light coat of Mod Podge all over the whole ornament and let it dry.  That didn't take long; MP dries quickly.  By the time I had all 12 hearts lightly coated, the first few were already dry and ready for the next step....attaching a ribbon.

I removed the tiny gold hanging string that had come on the red hearts and with a teeny bit of hot glue, glued a loop of ribbon to the top of the heart.  I started out using white ribbon.

But I switched to pink for a little extra color.  Plus, I knew the pink would work well with some pink mercury glass ornaments I found on eBay.

There's a little raised area on the top of each heart where the tiny gold hanging strip used to be.  I wanted to camouflaged the hot glue I had used to attach the ribbon, so I put a little craft glue on the raised area and sprinkled lots of pretty silver glitter over the glue.  I never knew how much fun glitter could be.  Messy, but so much fun!

I tied little bows from left over ribbon and I held them to the top to see how they would look.  Too fussy, I decided.  I thought seriously about adding a little puff of pink feathers at the top where the hanging ribbon attached, but I wasn't able to find pink feathers and my time was running out. I ended up using the hearts as they were, but I still like the feather idea a lot.  It would soften the look of the tree a bit.  I may add them, yet.

I did add a tiny bit of embellishment to two hearts.  I placed a little glue on the center of two hearts, in the shape of a heart...and glittered them up.

This centerpiece has lots of possibilities.  The branches could be sprayed painted white, pink or pale blue for Easter...then we could create an Easter or Springtime tree.  I have another little idea brewing in my mind for this spring, too.

Oh, when placing branches down into a container, you can use floral oasis or wire or whatever you wish down inside to help hold the branches.  I got lucky with this container because it goes pretty deep and it narrows dramatically inside.  So I just stuck the branches in and shifted them around a bit and they stayed.  I didn't have to use anything down inside to really hold them.  When I tucked the moss in, I did put some of it down a little into the bowl part of the urn to help secure the branches a bit more.  But the moss was more decorative than supportive.  You could stick paper down inside...really whatever you have on hand that will keep your branches in an upright position.

This centerpiece was super budget friendly.  I already had the urn...it was an inexpensive find ($12) a few years back from A Classy Flea.  The branches were free for the cleaning up taking from my front yard.  The moss around the base of the branches was left over from THIS moss covered table.  The sheet music was just printed from online and it only took a few sheets to cover all 12 hearts.  I already had the Mod Podge from my pumpkin decoupaging days.   So, the only expense was $17 for a dozen pink Mercury glass hearts and $3 for the plastic hearts (that got decoupaged) from Big Lots.  Update: JoAnn's has the pink and red mercury glass hearts (just like the ones I used) for $7.99 and right now (as of 2-11-12) they are on sale 50% off!  Awesome deal!)

So there ya have it...an easy, fun, inexpensive way to make a dozen music-covered hearts.

Happy Friday and Happy Crafting!  What plans do you have this weekend?  Any crafting plans?