Watercolor Valentine Hearts

Easy to make watercolor Valentine hearts become lovely framed art!

I’m really honored to be taking part in a blog tour hosted by my friend Jennifer Zuri over at Town and Country Living. Jennifer came up with the idea Heartfelt and Handmade. 28 bloggers are coming up with fun and meaningful projects to help spread some Valentine’s love – recipes, crafts, cards and DIY projects all with a meaningful twist.

Here’s how mine came out:

Okay, now I have a confession. I might be the only one here but I’m NOT a huge Valentine’s fan. Luke and I don’t go out for dinner, instead we usually do something with our two boys. We love to make things for each other and maybe get takeaway for dinner. So I kind of panicked on what I could share with all of you. In past posts, I’ve shared handmade valentines where the boys and I made chocolate truffles and hand painted boxes and have shared a few recipes. So I thought and thought and thought. I went to craft stores, Target and the grocery store. Looking for some inspiration.

I started thinking of my little loves and what is truly special to us. I love spending time with my two sons. I love painting and doing crafts with them so I thought it would be fun to make watercolor hearts.

This project is so easy and cute.

Watercolor Valentine’s Hearts

You may already have most of the materials at home, but in case you don’t I’ve used affiliate links in the tutorial.

Please read my full disclosure policy here.

Materials

• Watercolor Paper – we used some my kids have, but any will work fine
• Brush – pictured is my squirrel brush but you don’t need anything fancy
• Watercolor Palette
• Water
• Frame – I found this pretty one at Target
• Heart Paper Cutter
• Tape

The great thing about this project is it’s so freeing. It’s fun and easy. You can’t make mistakes because the watercolor looks lovely no matter how it dries on your paper. You can play and laugh with your kids because it’s just fun.

Method

Wet your watercolors to activate them. I like using a yogurt container that I’ve rinsed out for my water. Conor loves eating the French style yogurt by Yoplait and we wash the cups and save them for crafts 😉

The more water you use the lighter the color. Use your brush and make strokes across your page.

Allow the paper to dry. Once dry use a heart paper cutter to cut out heart shapes.

Time to frame! I found this great frame at Target. It’s part of the Hearth and Hand Collection. While I loved the buildings. I thought the watercolor hearts were more us.

I took the paper out and traced it onto a piece of watercolor paper.

I cut around the paper and then ripped around the sides to make it have more of an organic and soft feel.

Affix hearts with glue, glue dots or tape. We just used tape for ours.

Your art is ready to frame!

I love that we made this together, that I can look at this and think of my boys.

I also love that it is handmade but has a modern and fresh feel with the gold floating frame. The frame was a great price $12.99. I think.

To display it, I brought it up to our bedroom. That little bedside table is handmade too. My husband built it for me and I made the top look like soapstone. Can you believe it’s actually MDF? You can see the full tutorial here. The pitcher was also from Target.

How pretty are the flowers too?

They are rice flowers and I found them at Whole Foods. I just love that soft pink color and the texture of them. Little dots. So sweet.

Do you think you’ll try these at home?

These hearts could also be really cute on handmade valentines for school or you could take out your sewing machine and stitch them together and make a garland as I did here with nautical charts cut into circles.

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