Stained-Glass Window Hearts

It's been a while since my kids and I made tissue paper Stained-Glass Hearts for Valentine's Day. And since I have been all up in my dining room windows' business as of late, I thought we'd better get a move on.

A few years ago, I made these:

I still like them, but this year we decided to switch up the colors a little bit. I'm going to give you a brief run down of how we made ours, but if you want the No Messing Around In Depth Version, go here.

Start by ripping up a bunch of tissue paper into 2-3 inch pieces. They don't need to be perfect AT ALL.

Choose some pretty card stock or scrapbook paper and cut out 2 identical hearts for each Stained-Glass Heart. It's easy if you layer your paper before you cut.

Cut out a smaller heart shape from your  larger heart shape so that you have a heart-shaped frame. I wanted to hang the Stained-Glass Hearts from fishing line when we were finished, so I wanted to make sure both sides of the heart would be pretty. The smaller hearts are extra - you can do whatever you want with them. 

Open up the heart frame and lay a piece of wax paper ON TOP of the frame. You're just using the frame as an outline to see where you need to stick the tissue paper.

Use a foam sponge brush to wet the wax paper with liquid starch (or white glue mixed with water). Add 2 or 3 layers of tissue paper. The more tissue paper, the sturdier your heart will be. Make sure you completely cover your heart frame.

And make sure all the tissue paper is very wet with the starch.

Remove the heart frame from underneath the wax paper and let the wax paper / tissue paper / starch dry overnight.

Line up the heart frame on the tissue paper craziness and cut the wax paper / tissue paper along the outside of the heart frame.

Carefully and slowly peel the wax paper from the tissue paper. This part can be tricky, but I promise, it is completely doable if you are careful. Good luck to you!

You can definitely leave the wax paper on, but then it mutes the tissue paper colors on that side. If your tissue paper rips, just dab it with a little more starch or white glue.

Glue the tissue paper heart inside the two identical scrapbook paper frame hearts. 

Place your Stained-Glass Heart under a heavy book for a few hours. Glue some fishing line to the heart and hang it near a window to let the sun shine through. Or you can skip the fishing line altogether and tape your heart onto a window.

TA DA!

Ella and Peyton made a couple, too. I love love love crafting with them!

Ella made hers with pink frames and rainbow colored tissues.

Peyton made green and blue hearts. Because he's tough like that.

I experimented with this one a little. While the tissue was still wet with sticky liquid starch, I stuck some of that craft plastic-y iridescent snow to one side. It's pretty, but the sun has a hard time shining through it. Totally worth it for all that extra bling.

I like this sunshine-y yellow one, too!

We ended up making quite a few. I think they look really pretty all grouped together in our dining room.



And when the breeze blows through the window and they all sway - well, it's just beautiful.





I hung them right in the middle of my Paper Hearts. We've got all sorts of Valentine's Day color going on in here!







I love eating in here, surrounded by happy hearts: The punched-paper kind, the stained-glass tissue paper kind, but mostly, the real-life family kind.

Did you almost just gag right there with that last sentence? 

Because I did. 

Happy Valentine's Day!