Make Your Own Valentine Hearts Reusing Catalogs

This Valentine’s Day I was really feeling the winter blues starting to set into our home. With my little girl just learning shapes, I decided to make some heart shaped decorations to hang in our home as I did not want to go buy them at the store. After I found a free heart-shaped outline online, I hit print and walked past our recycling bin on my way to the printer. Then I had an idea…rather than cutting out pink or red craft paper hearts, why not use some old catalogs that were laying in my recycling bin?  After leafing through a few clothing catalogs, I knew these brightly colored hearts would be the perfect touch for Valentine’s Day with my loves.

 

What You Will Need:

Old Catalogs or Magazines

Scissors

Marker or Pen

Heart Shaped Template to Trace

Directions:

You will need a heart shaped template to begin. This can be drawn by hand on a piece of paper or you can print one off online for free. I printed off a heart shaped template I found online and cut around the line so that I had one large heart. I then cut out the interior of this heart to have another smaller heart template to use. (Bonus: cutting out the interior of the large heart made it easier to visualize the pattern I would be cutting out of the catalog page)

Start browsing through your catalog or magazine book marking the pages you might want to use for your cutouts. I found that clothing catalogs are great for textures, patterns and colors. Especially on the pages where they show all the patterns and colors available for that particular style.

You can see my first heart colored selections below. I did not know how much fun it would be picking out my patterns for these colored hearts.

 

You have a few options for tracing your heart template:

1. Lay the heart template on your selected catalog page area and trace all the way around the exterior of the heart.
2. Remove your heart template.
3. Remove the page from the catalog.
4. Cut on the interior of the line you traced so that the marker or pen lines do not show on your cutout heart.

Another option:

1. Tear out the catalog or magazine page you have selected.
2. Fold your heart template in half.
3. Place your heart template onto the area of the page you have chosen, then mark on the page where the fold line of the heart lines up to on the catalog or magazine page.
4. Remove the heart template.
5. Fold the catalog page in half along this line you just drew.

6.   6. Wrap the heart cut out around the folded catalog page in the area you want to cutout.

7. Trace one side of your heart template.

8. Cut on the interior of this line and unfold your heart.

Don’t be afraid to try different layouts or even type from a quote or heading. You might be surprised what fun combinations you find. Be creative.

My little girl loved these colorful hearts I hung around the house, on our hallway mirror and even on a few doors. Each night she pointed them out to me, she just learned how to say ‘heart’. These hearts were fun to make a simple way to brighten our home. A great way to reuse some old catalogs and save money without buying Valentine’s Day decorations.