Woven paper hearts

As I said earlier I have been busy with little bits of crafting here and there to put on a card to give my husband on Valentines day. This time I have tried paper weaving, the same card strips that I have been using for quilling.

As you can see in the above photograph, it's just a simple under, over technique until you reach the required size. I haven't glued it at all as I plan to give the heart a paint effect but you could glue it if you choose to, you could also do this with coloured paper, to create a lovely design.

As with the quilled hearts I wanted to give the woven paper a vintage, antique feel so I started with a red paint and a very dry, stiff brush. I just lightly dipped my brush in the paint and then wiped most of the paint off before dragging the brush across the card, the effect looks a little like a fabric.

I then lightly sprayed over the red paint with gold spray, don't worry if you spray this too thick as you can gently rub off some of the gold after it is dry. This actually adds to the vintage look and you should end up with the red just showing like an undercoat.

I then decided to cut out a heart shape from the woven card, the paint should have fixed it together but if you find a loose bit a quick dab of glue should sort it out. At this stage you could really cut out any shape you want to, as long as you weave to the required size. I loved the heart like this but thought I would add some beads to see what it looked like.

I added tiny, little red beads at the point at which the card strips cross, I'm not really sure yet which I like better... with or without but I can change it back if I want to and the beads give the card an extra depth. So that is another little piece of the Valentines card finished, got to work on the design now for tomorrow, that is the hard part.