Valentine’s Decorations: Twig Heart Canvas

Today the lovely Ness from One Perfect Day  this gorgeous twig heart art with us today as the  31 Days of Love series continues – they make lovel Valentine’s Day Decorations. Check out previous posts, such as Valentine’s Cards , Valentines Gifts that Kids can Make and Valentines Treats!

Hi, I’m Ness from One Perfect Day where we share fun and simple crafts, and creative ways for kids to play and learn.

We have a huge gum tree in our front garden and our lawn is always covered in fallen leaves and twigs. This means we have an endless supply of sticks for all sorts of crafts and imaginative play. Today I’m sharing how we put some of those sticks to good use by making this golden heart canvas. It really was very simple to make and we had a lovely afternoon gathering and painting our sticks.

What you will need:
Canvas
Paint in two colours of your choice (we used pink and gold)
Sticks in various lengths
Glue
Pencil
Paper
Scissors

How to make a painted stick heart canvas

1. Paint your canvas. You may need to paint two coats to achieve a nice even coverage of paint. Set aside to dry.

2. Prepare a heart shaped template. This will act as a guide when arranging your sticks. Simply draw a heart on a piece of paper and cut it out. Do you know the simple trick for drawing a perfectly symmetrical heart? Fold your paper in half and with the fold on the left, draw half a heart. Cut along the line you have drawn, open up the folded paper and voila! A perfect heart.

3. Arrange the sticks in a heart shape. Place your heart shaped paper template on a flat surface and place your sticks on top. When selecting sticks, try to use ones that are relatively the same thickness and fairly straight. (See pic number 1 above)

4. Paint the sticks. When you are satisfied with the arrangement of the sticks, paint them in your colour of choice. We chose to paint ours gold and the effect is just lovely when the sunlight hits the canvas. TIP: As you paint each stick, lay them to dry in the same arrangement that you made over the template. This will make life MUCH easier when it comes time to place them on the canvas. (see pic number 2 above)

5. Mark your starting point on the canvas. When the canvas is dry, place your paper template over it and make a VERY FAINT pencil mark (I just made a very small dot) at the lower tip of the heart. This will show you exactly where to start placing the sticks on the canvas.

6. Arrange the sticks on the canvas. Place all of the sticks on the canvas BEFORE you glue any of them down. This will ensure that you can rearrange them slightly until they are just right.

7. Glue the sticks to the canvas. I used simple clear-drying craft glue but you could use a hot glue gun if you wanted.

One last tip – Lay the canvas flat until the glue is completely dry, otherwise you may have a slightly droopy heart, and a few gold sticks on the floor. Ask me how I know this 😉

That’s it! Your gorgeous stick heart is now ready to hang on the wall.

Ness lives with her family in Sydney and is the creator of One Perfect Day where she writes about family, food, and playful learning for kids. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Her mantra is “Every day may not be good but there is something good in every day” and she loves to share those good moments on Instagram.