Paper Heart Magnet

I made a paper heart refrigerator magnet using the same technique as the monarch butterfly craft. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Affiliate links below. 

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Paper Heart Magnet

Materials: 

• colorful construction paper (or copy paper)
• ruler (that's my FAVORITE centering ruler)
• paper trimmer
• strong craft glue
• micro-tip scissors
• magnet tape

Steps:

For one heart, you will need twelve strips of paper (two each of six different sizes). Save yourself some work and cut two at a time. You can use whatever colors you want, but for simplicity's sake, I'll list what I used. Cut two each:  

• 7" x 1" blue
• 6" x 1" light blue
• 5" x 1" green
• 4" x 1" light green
• 3" x 1" yellow
• 2" x 1" orange

Separate the strips into two identical piles. Set one pile aside. Put a thin line of glue on one end of the 7" blue strip. Put the 6" light blue strip on top. Add a thin line of glue on the same end of the 6" light blue strip and put the 5" green strip on top. Continue until all the pieces are glued together at one end.

Put a strip of glue on the same place you've been gluing. Bend the 2" orange strip over and hold it in place. Repeat the process of adding glue and folding over each strip, one at a time.

When this half of the heart is done, set it aside and repeat the steps with the remaining paper strips to make an identical half. 

Glue one half to a piece of black paper by spreading glue on the edges of each color. Glue the second half in place right next to it, adding a bit of glue to connect the two halves to each other. 

When the glue is dry, carefully cut around the heart. 

Turn the heart upside down and attach two strips of magnet tape to the back. 

 The magnet looks great on the fridge! Pair it with some alphabet magnets to display a message.

By the way, this was quite possibly the most difficult thing I've ever tried to photograph (worse than the glass-etched votive even!). You can see my reflection in the photo, but that was the least of my troubles. I took several dozen photos at different times of day, at angles, with and without fill light, using posterboards to move the light, you name it, and I could not capture the dimension of the heart on the reflective background of the fridge without something looking really weird. This is the best I could do and I had to process it pretty heavily to get what you're seeing (yea, PicMonkey!). Hats off to all the great photographers out there. You really make it look easy and it is NOT easy!