Gilded Heart Garland DIY

Heart Garland DIYs are very popular this year, especially for Valentine’s Day, and I find myself drawn to ones that are very unique. One of my favorites is a DIY Oven Baked Clay and Burlap Garland that Tammy recently shared on Live Creatively Inspired:

Isn’t it stunning? There’s so many pretty details that I haven’t seen on heart garlands before. Even among the masses of “heart garland DIY” pins on Pinterest, Tammy’s stands out! 

And so, when I decided I wanted to make my own heart garland, I knew I’d have to do something a bit different too.

I came up with my Gilded Heart Garland DIY! I made a garland of silver and gold hearts, and didn’t use any traditional Valentine’s Day colors. 

Here’s how I created it, and how you can make your own:

Supplies:

Paper maché heart ornaments
Martha Stewart Liquid Gilding (in both silver and gold)
Paint brush
Stencil for allover lace design
Stencil brush
DecoArt Metallic Glaze (in Olde World Patina)
Adhesive gems
Twine

Tutorial:

Step One: Paint the paper maché hearts with the gold and silver liquid gilding. 

If you’ve never used liquid gilding, you will be quite surprised at just how easy it is to use! I’ve used this on quite a few craft projects because it’s a great way to get the look of gilding without all the work. You simply brush this on with a paint brush. It dries quickly. I usually apply two coats.  Let dry thoroughly.

Tips: Use a disposable paint brush that you won’t mind tossing afterwards, and make sure you apply the gilding in a well-ventilated area.

Step Two: Apply an allover stencil design on both sides of your gilded hearts.

I purposely wanted a lace design over the gilding, so I used part of a larger paisley design that you see below. 

Since my hearts were smaller than this large paisley stencil, the result would look like a lace overlay.

I used a metallic glaze instead of acrylic paint because I like how it looks against the gold and silver gilding – almost a bit see-through – which I thought was perfect for a lace effect. 

The stencil that I used had an adhesive backing, making it easy to position and stay in place. (You can use a light masking tape or stencil tape otherwise.) Using a stencil brush, apply the glaze onto the stencil. Once applied, carefully lift off your stencil and then set the heart aside to dry. 

Repeat this process for the other hearts and let dry completely before stenciling the other sides of the hearts. 

Step Three: Apply adhesive-backed gems.

I really like these adhesive-backed gems by Darice, as they’re really strong and come in a pretty selection of jewel tones. I used the green gems on the silver hearts and the blue gems on the gold hearts for just a bit of sparkle. 

These gems are easy to use, as you simply peel them off the protective sheet and place where you want, then gently press down and they’re on there! I stuck the gems in the centers of each flower in the lace design, so three gems per heart.

And now all that’s left to do is hang them up! 

I used twine for the garland. Because the hearts already had loops attached, and because the twine has a rough texture, I didn’t even need to worry about securing each heart to the twine. This made stringing it up very easy, as I just needed to adjust the spacing once it was hung up.

If you’d like to see another project where I used this same stencil to get a lace effect, you can visit my blog to see my glass-etched paperweight DIY:

 Happy crafting!

~Laura