Cute and Easy Heart Suncatcher Crafts for Kids

There are so many adorable Valentine’s Day crafts for kids. I came up with this idea as a hybrid between the really sweet suncatcher crafts I have seen and an easy heart craft Sweet Pea would have fun doing with me. This craft really has two parts and if you wanted to stop after part one, you would still have a super cute and easy heart craft. However, we had a partial snow day. So, Sweet Pea and I went for the gusto and this is our end result. I think it is awfully cute and I hope you do too!

Easy Heart Suncatcher Crafts for Kids

What you will need for this craft:

Pre-cut foam hearts, two per suncatcher. I saw a good-sized pack of pre-cut foam hearts at the craft store and decided they were worth the splurge. We used four in total– two red and two pink.
Baubles to decorate the hearts. We used pom poms and buttons. However, whatever suits your fancy is just fine. Jewels, stickers, glitter glue, etc.. Also, feel free to mix and match. We stuck with a theme for each heart, but you don’t have to.
craft glue
scissors
contact paper
hole punch
painter’s tape
Valentine’s Day colored tissue paper. We used red, purple, and a few shades of pink
Ribbon
black marker or pencil

Instructions Part One:

Ok, this is pretty basic. Follow the contour of the foam heart and trace a smaller heart inside of it. Cut that heart out in order to create the frame for the suncatcher. ***Save the ‘small’ heart and set it aside.
Let your kid decorate the heart frame. For younger children you may need to direct the process a little bit, or at least control the glue. Sweet Pea and I worked together. I applied glue dots and she picked which pom poms and buttons she wanted to use. We ran into a 2 second problem because she only wanted to use the biggest buttons. So, I helped her space out the big ones and choose smaller buttons to fill in the gaps.
Let the glue dry and you are finished with Part One!

Instructions Part Two:

Like I said earlier, we did part two almost a week after part one. This was our first foray into the world of contact paper and I learned a few valuable lessons.

- Get the contact paper craft zone set up before your toddler gets involved. Trust me on this one.
- Having never worked with contact paper before, I couldn’t figure out how to peel the actual paper off. (Note: I play the violin and have very short fingernails.) My brilliant husband figured out that the contact paper will peel more easily when warm. So, I just stuck the contact paper sheet in the microwave for 10 seconds and had no problem peeling it. Life hack!

Set out the ‘bottom’ sheet of contact paper and frame it with at least two strips of painter’s tape.
Cut or rip varying sizes and colors of tissue paper. If you kid is old enough, they can actually be the ones to cut or rip the paper. I gave Sweet Pea a few sheets of tissue paper to experiment with but I did the actual cutting… mostly because Sweet Pea is just learning scissor skills and I did actually want the suncatcher part of this craft to turn out cute.
Just like with decorating the hearts, I worked with Sweet Pea to ensure she used all the colors and we covered almost all the open space on the contact paper sheet.
Next, cover all the tissue paper with the ‘top’ sheet of contact paper.
Use the marker or pencil to trace a rough outline of the heart frame onto the contact paper-tissue sandwich. I say rough, because no one will see it once you are done. I just used the heart frame as a guide and drew the heart underneath it… just to make sure it would be proportional. Once the outline is drawn, cut that heart out.
Remember the ‘small’ heart center you saved when making the heart frame in Part One? Well, use that heart as a template to make a second heart frame with the second pre-cut foam heart. This will be the backing to your suncatcher.
Place the tissue paper heart on the back half of the frame so that it lines up the way you want and then glue the two halves of the heart frame together. Let the heart suncatcher dry.

If you want to hang your Heart Suncatcher up!

Last but not least, if you want to hang your suncatcher up, use the hole punch (I have a hole punch I use with card making that worked well) to punch a hole/holes big enough to thread ribbon through. Pick out a pretty piece of ribbon, cut the desired length, and make a ribbon loop for your suncatcher!

I hope you love this little craft as much as I do. Of course, the best part was doing it with my little girl! It’s been over a week now and almost every day she takes the hearts down to remind me of what we did together. Now, that is sweet!