Valentine’s Day Craft: Giant DIY Heart {Just $3 to Make!}

Here is a really easy and inexpensive Valentine’s Day craft idea.

This is one that the kiddos can probably help out with and it is a pretty dramatic piece for the front door, on the mantle or over a mirror.

I made this giant puffy heart out of foam board, coffee filters, a little hot glue and spray paint.  Since I had glue and paint on hand, the price was about $3.00 in total to make this project.

I have made this in the past- the idea came from Lowe’s- you simply buy a piece of foam craft board and cut out a number.  I made this for my daughter’s 5th birthday.

Next you fold coffee filters and then glue them down.  Once you fill the board completely you can fluff them up a bit and finally spray paint the color of your choice.

Here is how my 5 turned out– and let me tell you I was racing to get this done!  So if you take a little more time you can probably make yours look much nicer.

Anyway I decided to make something similar for Valentine’s Day.

I simply bought a piece of foam board (about $1 at craft stores, Walmart or Dollar stores) and I bought two packages of plain coffee filters ($.84 each at Target).

I drew a heart freehand on the foam board and then cut it out.

Next I started to glue the filters on.  This is fairly tedious- it took me about an hour so you might do this during your favorite show.

In the picture above you can see I started by gluing the filter right on my heart- I just followed the shape of the heart that I cut out.  You can use school glue but I prefer hot glue because it adheres so quickly.

Once the circle was down, I started folding other filters to fill in the circle.  That creates the nicest look- a fluffy circle.  Just make little triangles with the filters- you need tons of them so this is a great way to get the kids involved.

Once you folded your triangle, bend the tip so you have a little L shape.  The bottom tip is what you glue down in the circle.  You don’t want any large holes in the circle so glue them fairly close together.

You want to just keep folding and gluing until each circle is completely filled in.

Once you are done take a step back and fluff where you need- it is better to do it now before you paint.  It looks really pretty once you start fluffing.

Then take your masterpiece outside and lightly spray paint.  I chose a cherry red color and used two coats.  You can leave it white if you prefer or if you buy the organic coffee filters at the store, those are a pretty light brown.

And that was it!  All in all probably about $3.00 and 2 hours of time.

This is what it looks like on the front door but it would also be cute over a mantle or mirror or just on a wall that can use alittle something.

See tons more Valentine’s Day ideas and recipes on my Pinterest board.  One of my favorites were these yummy heart Brownie Bites: