Heart Basket

What You Need:

• Scrap paper and pencil
• Red, pink and white felt
• Marker
• White string
• Scissors
• Large craft needle
• Hot glue gun and glue stick

What You Do:

1. Invite your child to create the pattern for making her felt heart basket. She can draw several hearts on scrap paper with a pencil until she's happy with one size and then carefully cut it out as her heart pattern.
2. Now she can use her heart pattern to cut-out the shapes from felt – they will be the two sides to her basket. Just tell her to place the paper heart on the felt, close to an edge so both hearts fit on one sheet, and trace around it with a marker. Then she can reposition the heart and trace around it again. This way both hearts are the exact same size!
3. Offer her scissors to use for cutting out her hearts. Once both sides are cut out, she can get ready for sewing!
4. Invite your child to thread a large craft needle with a 3-foot length of white string, which hones her hand-eye coordination!
5. Now, to sew the two sides together: first have her tie a knot at the end of the string.
6. Next, have her press together the two hearts, lining them up evenly.
7. Starting halfway down the side of the heart have your child do a simple straight stitch, sewing down and through the felt, and then up and through the felt, staying close to the outer edge! It'll create what looks like a line of dashes.
8. Your child can stop sewing once she's gone around to the middle of the other side of the heart.
9. Now she can tie another knot and cut the string!
10. To create the handle for the basket, your child can cut a length of felt 1-inch by 12-inches long. She can attach the handle by putting a small amount of hot glue on each end of the strip and pressing it to the seams on the inside of the heart. Be careful – hot glue guns get hot!
11. To decorate the front of her basket your child can cut smaller hearts out of the pink and white felt. She can attach them using the hot glue gun!

She's all set for collecting Valentines!