heart garlands

I’m not into flowers and chocolates but I do love an excuse to cut hearts out of paper. In Montpelier, Vermont where I was living the Valentine Phantom would plaster the town with thousands of red hearts. That means spending several hours in sub-freezing temps in the middle of the night taping pieces of paper to every window on every store in town. Amazing when you drive down the street on Valentine’s day…

Sometimes my friend Suki and I would do guerilla arts and crafts for V-tine’s with kids or other women and would write love poems on pretty paper and stick them in random public places…on elevators…bathrooms…etc. I love the idea of spreading love…not just romantic love…but love for everyone.

Anyway, here’s a simple project I used to do with my students. Start by taking a magazine and cut strips about 1″-3″ wide. I used an older Free People catalog.

Fold strips accordion-style…

If it’s helpful, you can draw a heart on one end, but make sure you leave a little room where they will connect to each other on the folds!

Cut the top half…

And then the bottom! Unfold and tape together to hang where you please, or to wrap around a small gift.

i’ve been kind of obsessed with doilies. i recently was gifted a ginormous bag of them from the antique store in montpelier:

doily haul

i’ve also been a long-time buddha altar collage maker.  i’m finding creative ways to use the doilies too…here’s one I made this week:

to help dial down my adrenaline fatigue