Twine Hearts Art Project

Need a little last minute Valentine's Day project with the kiddo's? I have the perfect one. I saw this twine hearts art project on Pinterest and thought I would give it a try with my daughter.

You will need:  cornstarch, water, various colors of bakers twine (or something similar…I used twine from The Twinery and Michaels), heart shaped cookie cutter or mold a heart shape out of foil.

First you will want to heat the cornstarch/water mixture.

1/4 c. Cornstarch 1/2 c. Water

Heat SLOWLY on the stove at a med-low temperature. I wanted to accentuate slowly as I did not do this the first time. I turned around for 1 minute (ahem...okay, okay I was texting) and it quickly clumped up and made a big mess! So on my second try, I whisked it constantly until the cornstarch was warm and completely dissolved.

Then let the mixture cool.

Dip your bakers twine in the cooled cornstarch mixture and lay in your heart mold.  Your hands are going to get a lil messy.  Just let it go.

Bake your twine hearts in the oven at 225 degrees for about 20 minutes.  I left the molds on a couple of the twine hearts to see if they would turn out better.  They didn't.  If anything it was just more difficult to take the twine hearts off the molds.  But the other ones peeled off the parchment paper perfectly.

My little helper abandoned me.  It's hard to hold the attention of a 15 month old!

Since this was technically an art project for Lexie I wanted to hang the hearts in her room.  I hung a garland on a framed scrapbook layout I made of our "pregnancy reveal" picture.

Also added a couple to some shelves in her room which have a other projects we made for her nursery before she was born.

And her lamp on her changing table.  I love how the thicker jute twine turned out.

A couple tips:

• I cut the bakers twine to about the length of my arm span.  The thicker jute twine was about half that size as it fills up more space.
• For the pink jute heart, I squeezed out the cornstarch/water mixture before putting it in the mold and it didn't turn out as well as the blue one, which I just pulled straight from the mixture without draining.
• Lay the hearts on parchment paper to bake so they don't stick to your pan and make a mess.
• Don't forget to watch the cornstarch/water mixture as it heats up!  And do not pour the mix down the drain when you are done.  This may be kind of a "duh" moment but I just want to make sure you remember!
• Have fun and enjoy the time with your kids...or just yourself :)