HOW TO MAKE A FLOATING HEART BACKDROP
Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 10:36AM I'm crazy about hearts this year. I think it's time Valentine's Day got a pop of color. During the time I was planning this DIY, I was also playing around with a little toy (aka supertool) from HP, the HP Envy 23 Touchsmart AiO PC and I was loving the colors in the new Windows 8. Plus the floating and how I can interchange the windows kind of inspired me. I can get inspired by pretty much anything and what can I say, it was a PC this time. I thought why not skip the solid red for Valentine's Day and use all the other colors instead? I set off to the craft store and grabbed the biggest heart punch they had and went home to punch my crafty little heart out. In the process, I made way too many hearts but I figure I can use these clear up through Valentine's Day.
You will need: clear fishing line, heart punch, card stock in fun colors, tape (regular and painter), and scissors.
Use the punch to punch out a ton of hearts. For this set up, I needed 20 garlands with 6 hearts each. Since I used 6 colors, I only needed 20 hearts of each color, plus a few extra to mix and match.
Once all of your hearts are cut out, make 20 sets of 6. Try and mix up the colors so each stack is a little different.
Cut a piece of fishing line and strand your garland on the table with tape. Fishing line is a bit tricky to work with and you can lose your pieces really easily. Set up a workspace on the floor. Measure the distance from the ceiling to where you want the last heart to land. Tear off ten pieces of painter's tape and place five on each end about six inches apart. Take the fishing line and pull it out 12 inches. Tape it down at one end of the floor and pull the spool down to the second piece of tape. Tape the line taut and cut. Start at the other end and tape down four more pieces. Once your lines are taped, add each set of hearts by lining up the center of the heart underneath each line, about a foot apart. Repeat until you have all of your hearts under the lines. Check and move colors around until it looks fabulous.
Then take a small piece of tape and attach each heart to the line. Make sure all of your hearts are attached before peeling back the painters tape and hanging.
Hang your garlands one at a time, starting five feet from the wall, and hang one garland to the edge of your photobooth area. Add the remaining garlands 1 foot apart, also attaching to the ceiling.
Make 5 more garlands on the floor and hang the first one one foot closer to the wall and six inches left to where you placed the previous row's garland. Hang the rest of the garlands and repeat with the next two rows.
I made five garlands and immediately hung them, but you can make five and store them until you are going to hang them. Keep them separate folded accordion style in a sandwich baggie or wrap around a paper towel roll to keep them from tangling.
Once they are all hung, pop in the middle of them and smile! These would be really fun in an ombre where the color is fades as it gets closer to the floor or even just a solid color. This is one of those projects that just makes me happy in my heart, pun intended.
Learn more about my HP experience in my next post...now you have seen the DIY, check out what I do with it! Yes, HP sent me a computer to play around with and to make a few posts. I wrote this while participating in a program on behalf of HP and received an ENVY 23 TouchSmart AiO and other products as a thank you for my participation.
Reader Comments (20)
This is absolutely adorable! I'm trying to plan out my best friend's bridal shower and one of the ideas I had was to make a photo booth because the rental is too expensive. This is the cutest idea for a back drop that is SOOO much easier than cutting out a million circles and doing a scalloped backdrop. I love the floating hearts!! It's adorable!!! I think the place she's having it has low ceilings too so Oooo this could be a great idea!! Thanks!!! =)
I saw your card from the Alt Summit over at the blog The Proper Pinwheel! Very chic and simple. Love it! II have to check out your blog more!! =)
This is awesome! Love it :)
This is so fun! And your dress is amaze-balls!
Love how your surrounded by these teeny hearts! Must have been a fun project!
Melissa
http://shakeshakee.blogspot.com
LOVE! I <3 <3s
Your dress is awesome!
Thanks ladies! The dress is from Milly, I think it is my favorite.
Awesome!
Thanks for this adorable project and great tutorial! Am imagining the hearts replaced by virtually anything, depending on the occasion! :-)
I love this! Thanks for the tutorial. It's so whimsical! It would be perfect for a children's b-day party.
This is wonderful! Love it! And your dress is pretty cool too :)
LOVE it!
How did you connect the garland to the ceiling?
so perfect, cute and simple! great tutorial... love it... now just have to get a darn heart shaped punch... !! ^__^
hi would love to find out the brand and size of your punch thanks
this is awesome!!
I LOVE this, one of the best Valentine's DIYs I've seen in a long while. All the different colours are adorable and they really do look like they're floating. Beautiful.
Lovely!
Simply adorable! I love those hearts, the colors are just amazing! Thanks for sharing this easy and very pretty project Jenny!
I LOVE this idea! Thank you for the great toot! I'm definitely going to make this. I would also love to know what heart punch you used.
Thanks!
So cute!
I've been searching around for heart craft punches as well so if you can share what size you used?
Or the dimensions of these hearts?
Thanks!
Instead of colored carstock, I used the free paint color samples that they give out at the store! :D