Punched Tissue Paper Valentine's Day Heart Bowl


Happy almost Valentine's Day! I'm so glad I could squeeze one more Valentine's Day project in this year! I had one of those heart-shaped glass bowls you can get at Dollar Tree and I wanted to jazz it up. I just couldn't figure out what to do. Years ago, when I first started working with tissue paper and mod podge, I tried to use a paper punch to cut out shapes of tissue paper to decorate a glass candle holder. It didn't work. Not even a little. I totally had to shift gears and work with patterned paper. Since then, I've done tons of tissue paper and mod podge projects. Not too long ago I saw a tutorial for another one of those projects where they punch tissue paper with paper punches...and in my head I was like: nope, nope, nopity nope, can't be done. Then I kept reading. They said they had to layer the tissue paper by folding it over several times before it would punch. I had tried punching a couple layers the first time, but not several. Oops. Time to try again! 


So I grabbed some seasonally colored pink and red tissue paper. I folded three sheets of pink paper over 4 or 5 times, smoothed it out and shoved it in my larger (about an inch) heart shaped punch. And...amazingly, it worked! I had perfectly punched hearts.


I continued punching other colors of paper until I had a nice big pile (I didn't need this many hearts--but I didn't want to have to stop and punch more. I used about half of these).


Next, I used a foam brush to apply a layer of mod podge. I then applied the hearts. I decided to keep mine all facing roughly the same direction and to not worry about the gaps along the top and bottom edge, but to try to fill in all the gaps in the middle by layering hearts. You could apply these going all different directions if you'd like, just pick a method and go with it. As you're applying the hearts, try to keep your fingers dry. You may have to stop and clean them periodically. As soon as they get sticky, that's when you start ripping holes in your tissue paper.


After I made my way around the bowl once, I was fairly pleased. There were just a few gaps I wanted to cover up and a few places where there were too many of the same color in the same area, etc... So I let it dry for a couple minutes so that I wouldn't tear anything when working with it.


Then I carefully dabbed glue onto the areas I wanted to add hearts and layered them over top. The above photo was after I finished applying hearts. It doesn't look too different.


Then I let all the hearts dry for about a half an hour and applied a layer of mod podge over top to seal it. Be sure to check any of the hearts that were layered over top of others to make sure they are all the way glued down, then apply a thin layer over the top of everything. Let it dry and you're good to go.


So I was pleasantly surprised that I could finally get the paper punch method to work, and now I can't wait to try it on other projects. Maybe I'll finally make the candle holders I wanted to make 3 years ago. Happy Crafting!

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