An easy Valentine’s Day DIY Garland with hearts and tassels

DIY step-by-step tutorial to make a beautiful wood garland with hearts for some Valentine’s Day decorations with inner changeable hearts and tassels for your home.

Do you love fun craft projects? I love to create something unique and beautiful for my home, especially when it does not involve a sewing machine. So today, I will share a simple way to make the cutest garland for Valentine’s Day. Then you can change the heart out for an Easter egg for Easter.

I made this garland a few years ago and continue to use it to decorate on Valentine’s Day and Easter. Since it was one of my first posts, I wanted to update it and share it with you again. Unfortunately, many of the images are a few years old, and let’s say they are not good photos, so bear with me. However, I am happy to say that not only have my blog posts improved, but my photography has as well.

I have made several of these, some with all wood, and some I added wool felt pom poms, I like the look of the wool felt, but it is harder to string and takes more time. You could also use yarn pom poms and add paper hearts, as I used on my Valentine’s Day Tree. You can see this at the end of this post.

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Supplies Needed

• Yarn, I chose to mix two colors, but that is up to you (available at your local craft stores)
• Embroidery thread
• Hearts, I bought a package of wood hearts, but you could easily cut hearts out of cardboard, be sure to punch a hole at the top.
• For Wood beads, I used 9 -25 mm beads, 8 -20 mm beads, and 16 -16 mm beads.
• Scissors
• Needle with a large eye, I used a darning needle.
• A piece of cardboard that measures 4 x 4 inches
• An “O” ring to tie at the end of the wood garland.
• Pom poms made of wood, or you could make pom pom hearts if you know how ( I have not mastered this one yet)
• Paper hearts if you would like to add them. Here you can view my post on creating the cutest 3D hearts made from scrapbook paper.
• Paper Cutter if you are making paper hearts.

Directions to make a DIY Valentine’s Day Garland

How to make a yarn tassel

• Cut a piece of yarn that is approximately 8″ long.
• Place this yarn horizontally across the top of the 4″ x 4″ cardboard.
• Using both yarn colors, wrap the yarn around the cardboard vertically approx 20 -30 times, depending on how full you would like your tassel.
• You can also use jute to make these tassels; it is much thinner, so I would wrap it several more times.
• Once you have finished wrapping, take the two ends of the 8″ piece that is going horizontal and tie it in a knot. This is now the very top of your tassel.
• Remove the yarn from the cardboard.
• Cut another piece of yarn about 8″ long and tie it about 1″ down from the top of the tassel.
• Continue to wrap this piece around the tassel about five times and then tie a knot on the back several times.
• Put the scissors through the loops at the bottom of the tassel and cut. You may need to trim the ends to make sure they are even.

How to make a small heart with yarn

• Choose your heart shape and create a heart template to cut out of cardboard. Or purchase wooden hearts. You can use one size of heart or several different sizes.
• Cut a piece of yarn about 12″ or your desired length. Place the yarn through the hole in the heart, and loop it around to create a tie to attach to the garland later.
• Using the yarn skein, place the end of the yarn against the back of the heart and start to wrap the yarn around the heart in a random pattern. You can also add a bit of hot glue, using a hot glue gun to your yarn to secure it if needed.
• Continue to wrap the yarn in all directions until you have covered every bit of the heart. You don’t want to see any of the wood or cardboard.
• Cut your yarn so you just have enough to weave through the back of the heart.
• Put the end of the yarn through the eye of the needle, then weave the yarn under some of the yarn you have already wrapped around the heart to secure it, trim the end, and put the heart aside with your tassel.

Making a wood garland

• Put the embroidery thread onto your needle, be sure to cut the thread long enough to go through the beads twice and have a bit left over. This depends on how long you want your garland to be. I made mine 3′ long, so my thread was 7′ long.
• Decide what pattern you want to create with the size beads you will use for your DIY valentine’s day decoration.
• Once you have your beads on the single thread, put the thread through a small 1/4″ “O” ring.
• Now go back through the beads in the opposite direction until you reach the end and have the two ends of the embroidery thread together.

How to put the wood garland together with the hearts and tassels

• Take the end with the needle and put the needle through the top of the tassel.
• Remove the needle and tie the two ends together in a knot. Next, cut off the yarn you used to hold the tassel together at the top, as the embroidery thread is holding the tassel together now.
• To attach the heart to the opposite end, You have two strings hanging at the top of the heart, place one through the “O” ring, and tie the two strings into a bow.
• Your tassel is permanent on one end, but the heart is removable. This way, you can replace the heart with an Easter egg, a shamrock, or even a Christmas tree so you can use your garland all year long.

Wishing you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here are a few other posts you may enjoy

Pink Floral Arrangement with Lemon Slices

DIY Valentine’s Day Tree

21 Recipes you can make with store-bought Angel Food Cake

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