Even if Valentine’s Day was commercialized by the card, candy, and flower companies, I still enjoy celebrating love and obnoxious hearts/pink/red.  That’s why I had so much fun making these Valentine’s Day decorations!  Even though they took a little bit of time, they were easy and cheap to make.

Yarn “XO” Blocks

Materials:

• Wooden/metal/plastic/etc letters
• Pink, red, and white yarn
• Glue gun with a ton of glue sticks
• Scissors

Directions:

1. Gather materials:  I got the wooden letters and the yarn from Michael’s.  The yarn quality does not matter so get whatever is cheapest.
2.  Warm your glue gun and make sure you have glue sticks handy, this takes A LOT of glue sticks.
3. Choose whichever color you want on the top.  Starting on the back of your letter, lay down a large bead of glue at the very top edge and lay the end of yarn in the glue.  To secure the end, lay more glue on the top of the yarn end.  Wait until it dries.
4. Lay a thin strip of hot glue, then pull the yarn tight through the glue, holding until it dries.  Continue this process of laying glue and yarn around and around your letter, until you reach the end of where you want that color to stop.  On the back of your letter, lay down another large bead of glue, trim your yarn and lay the end of your yarn in that bead, and then cover with more glue to hold in place.
5. Repeat steps 3-4 with your remaining colors.  I personally did the top and bottom colors first, and then finished with the middle, including layering white on top of the pink and the red for a “blending” look.
6. Hints!: Hot glue dries a bit opaque, so on darker colored yarns you will be more likely to see the glue under the yarn.  If you can slightly see it up close, don’t worry, once it is up on your mantle/shelf it is much harder to see.  If you have a curved letter like my “O,” in order to keep straight rows of yarn you will need to overlap the center edge occasionally.  You could also make this craft for any holiday by changing up the colors and phrase!  A red/green/gold “HOHO” would be really cute, or a dark green/gold/light green “LUCKY,” just for a few examples.

Yarn Hearts

Materials:

• Pink/red/white yarn
• Cardboard
• Tape
• Sharpie/pen
• Scissors

Directions:

1. Draw hearts on your cardboard with your marker.  I found that if you make them too large the cardboard will buckle in on itself, so if you want yours much bigger than mine I suggest gluing two pieces together for added support, though I haven’t tried this method to confirm it works.
2. Cut out your hearts
3. Tape the end of your yarn to your heart.  I found that the tape wrapped around the sides makes the wrapping of yarn much more challenging, so just put it on the front if possible.
4. Carefully wrap yarn around your heart, making sure you pull tightly, until your cardboard is completely covered.  I found doing a first wrap similar to this helped create “ladders” for the rest of the yarn to hold on to.  If you find your edges slipping, pull the yarn even tighter and/or change your angle of wrapping.  
5. Once you are done, cut the yarn and tuck the loose end into the loops of yarn, making sure it stays in place.                                                                      

Yarn Candles

Materials:

• Red/pink yarn
• White candles

Directions:

1. Wrap yarn around your candle about 1/3 of the way from the top.  Continue wrapping until your yarn layer is thick enough to your liking.
2. Cut the end of the yarn.  Tie the two pieces of yarn together into a double knot, you will hide this at the back of your candle.