Valentine’s Day is near at hand, so why not to start preparing for it now? It is easy to make a pretty heart using needle felting techniques and a usual cookie cutter which can be found in almost any kitchen. The heart can be used as valentine heart, as part of valentine necklace, as a valentine wand for children and as appliqué for different accessories. Usage of a cookie cutter allows managing without making a heart-shaped pattern and it preserves your fingers from the needle during work.
To make a valentine heart, you will need the following materials:
• a cookie cutter in the form of a heart;
• red, white and pink wool roving;
• a piece of dense foam, which is 2 inches thick and has size of about 10 x 12 inches.
Depending on your exactly wish, you can also take some adornments, such as pearl cotton, embroidery thread, beads, pieces of pink, white and red cloth, ribbon and so on. If you want to make a hole in the heart, a finish nail or an awl will be needed. Take yarn, ribbon, cord or thin wire, if you need a decorative hanger.
Put the cookie cutter of the foam pad and place the woolen roving inside the cutter so that it took the full form. Crease the wool to fit the cutter and overlay slender places. If you want to make a very thick heart, lay a slender stratum of the colored wool on the base, a stratum of tintless wool batting in the midst and one more stratum of colored wool on the upper surface. This allows you to preserve colored wool that is more expensive. It is possible to mix different colors putting them next to each other or making one scrap of wool very slender and felting it on the upper part of the other color.
To compress the wool into a thick stratum, keep the cookie cutter on the pad and prod the felting needle up and down everywhere on the woolen surface. Be attentive not to prick your fingers, as felting needle is very keen.
The wool gradually sticks to the foam. When you finish creating the form, withdraw the cookie cutter and separate carefully the felted heart from the foam. If some parts look scanty, attach more wool and felt it together with the main form. When your fundamental form is felted, withdraw the cookie cutter.
Now you are free to use this heart as you wish. You can decorate it with beads, cloth or embroidery, if you want to make some embellishment. For further usage of heart in a necklace, just prod a hole in the upper center of it. Make the point through the wool and then wiggle it until you get the hole of the desired size.