Patriotic Heart

I've been working on sorting my craft tutorials by holiday and season and noticed that I have not shared more than a handful of my patriotic crafts. I haven't done too many in recent years. I did them with my students all the time, but I don't decorate my house for patriotic holidays the way I used to decorate my classroom. Here's a fun and easy patriotic decoration, adapted from a Valentine's Day classic.

Materials: two sheets of different (but coordinating) patterned paper in red/white/blue, pencil, scissors, ribbon, glue 

Start by folding one of the patterned papers in half with the design facing in. Draw half a heart along the top of the fold line. Cut out the heart, leaving the fold line intact. Use this heart to trace 2 more hearts on that sheet of paper and three on the other sheet of paper. Cut out all the hearts. You should have 6 hearts total, 3 of each color, that are identical in size and shape. 

Once all the hearts are ready, it's time to glue. Put glue on half of a folded heart and attach it to the next, alternating between the blue and red papers. Continue gluing the next two hearts. The glue always goes on the white side of the paper.   

Fold a short piece of ribbon in half and glue it between the next two white sides, keeping it as close to the fold line as possible. Then continue gluing all the white sides together until none of them show.

It turns out this craft is really hard to photograph. This is the best I could manage. 

Fun, easy and beautiful when 32 of them are hanging from the classroom ceiling. I wish I'd taken a photo back in the day. Sadly, I have surprisingly few photos of the 11 years I spent teaching.