Woven heart ornaments are a Swedish Christmas tradition, but making them can be a challenge for little fingers so we came up with this easy version!
We recreated the look of Scandinavian woven heart basket ornaments with a kid-friendly version using a sponge painting technique.
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Originally I planned to make traditional woven hearts and do the actual weaving part with my kids. Although woven hearts are not exactly rocket science, I knew that my kids would get frustrated very, very quickly. Remember, we only do EASY holiday crafts. As it turns out, our version of the woven heart is so easy, even preschoolers or toddlers can make it.
"Woven" Heart Craft Instructions
The first step to making these heart ornaments is to read the SPLENDID book, Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren. This is my must read Christmas book. It's a cozy story about neighborhood children preparing for the holiday. You can find the book (and more!) on my list of Swedish Christmas books. The book depicts a Swedish holiday tree adorned with the heart ornaments!
What You Need:
- Red and/or green paper
- Heavy card stock or thin cardboard to make the template, or a heart shaped cookie cutter
- Pencil
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- White paint
- Kitchen sponge cut into a strip with a small square shape at one end
Step by Step:Â
Draw half a heart on the thin cardboard and cut out to make the template. If you have a heart shaped cookie cutter you can skip this step and simply trace your hearts using the cutter.
To make the paper hearts, fold the red or green paper in half. Line up your heart template with the folded side of the paper. Trace and cut out. Unfold the colored paper for the full heart.
Cut out as many hearts as you want!
Dip the small square end of the sponge in white paint. Make impressions on the heart shaped paper in a checkerboard pattern to mimic the traditional design of Swedish woven heart ornaments.
Kids can decide if they want to mimic the look of a woven heart or just stamp freestyle. Follow your kids' natural creative instincts!!
Cut several narrow strips of paper red and green paper. These will be the handles. If you want the ornaments to be traditional basket hearts glue two hearts together, applying glue only along the bottom-side edges. Then, affix one end of a paper strip to the top of one heart, the other end to the top of the other heart to make a basket handle.
If you want single hearts instead of baskets, simply glue the strip on the ornaments as a loop for hanging.
Finally, adorn your tree with the ornaments and then go read more Christmas picture books!
So what do you think? Is this "woven" paper heart not the easiest Swedish Christmas craft ever? If we can do it, so can you!
NEXT: make our cutest ever tomten garland and then read some tomten books.
MORE: Swedish Christmas books and Scandinavian folktales are perfect for snuggle time after your ornaments are on the tree.
Ana says
I love these! They are gorgeous and of course I love how you displayed them on a branch ;)!
Melissa says
Beautiful Erica!! I love them & am in love with the faux weaving - just brilliant 🙂
Erica MomandKiddo says
Aww, thanks Melissa!
Claire says
Great post. I have tried to make the Swedish heart ornaments with kindergartners and yes, it was very frustrating. I'm going to give the sponge painted version a try.
Also, I just wrote a blog post about Santa Lucia Day in the little town of Kingsburg where I live.
Could I link to your post?
http://afieldtriplife.com/a-season-of-lights/
Erica MomandKiddo says
How fun! I did a mini Santa Lucia Day activity with the school class when my son was in preschool and it was so fun. By all means, link to my post, thank you!
Ann says
I'll have to find this book, I love Pippi Longstocking and love your idea for making mock woven hearts!