If you are looking for a great Valentine’s Day Craft, we’ve got it.  This beautiful, 3D heart is fun and easy to make with your bare hands. It’s especially enjoyable if you like messy projects.   

We invented it by chance. 

Last week as we were standing in the kitchen, looking at the wet, colored kitchen paper towels after a Chromatography experiment, we asked what we always ask, “What else can we do with it?”  

We couldn’t come up with anything better than put it in a blender with some water.  The resulting mushy substance proved to be incredibly fun to touch and squeeze. We pressed it into a heart cookie cutter and ended up with a beautiful 3-D heart.  

We decided to make of these 3-D hearts to give out to all our friends on Valentine’s Day!  

The second time around we eliminated the blender and had, even more, fun mashing things with hands.  If your kids enjoy sticking their hands in gooey messes, as much as my kids, they will definitely enjoy making this Valentine’s Day 3D Heart.  

What you need

Kitchen paper towels

Red food coloring

Heart cookie cutter

Water 

String and something to make a hole for the string (optional)

Mod Podge, glitter glue or glittery nail polish for decoration (optional)

Valentine’s Day 3D Heart

What to do

1. Tear paper towel in small pieces and soak it in water for a few seconds. Feel free to stick your hands inside the mess and squeeze and mash it to your heart’s content.
2. Add food coloring.
3. Pick up the wet paper towels and press inside the cookie cutter. You can use bare hands or a fork. You can use a cookie cutter of almost any kind, except the ones with very narrow parts. We tried to make a ballerina, but it was hard to press enough paper towel inside her long arms and legs to make it work.  
4. Squeeze the excess water out. If you don’t want to get food coloring on your hands, you can avoid it by pressing down with a spoon. 
5. If you are planning to hang your heart, make a hole for the string while the heart is still wet. We used a knitting needle but anything sharp will work. 
6. Let it dry overnight. 

(Optional) If you prefer to have a smoother surface, you can cover the heart with Mod Podge to even out the lumps.   

But most of my kids didn’t like the smooth heart. After their hearts dried, they covered them with glitter glue and sparkly nail polish. 

We will definitely use this same method for creating some Christmas decorations next year. 

We started our day with chromatography, the science of separating molecules, and ended with big red hearts.  That was not what we expected, but we fell in love with these hearts and now we have one of a kind gift for our friends on Valentine’s Day.  

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