Swedish Woven Paper Hearts - With Some Great Links

This afternoon I sat down with my son and we made these woven paper hearts.  He's doing a school project on Sweden and these popped into my head.  It seemed like good timing to mix a Swedish paper craft with Valentine's Day. 


I know I have a template for these in my house somewhere, but my quick search this morning came up dry.  So onto the internet I jumped and I found some pretty nice links if you would like to make these with your kids.  


If you are wondering about age range, my son is 12 and he made the red and purple one completely on his own.  These things always depend on the individual, but I'd say maybe 8 and up unless you just have a super handy little person in the house. 


On to the links!  Family Fun has a tutorial complete with video.  That's always nice.  Their template is cute too.  It's the green and blue one in my photo.  It creates little hearts within the big heart.  I found that this template prints better with a horizontal paper orientation.


I also stumbled upon the Daughters of Norway Nordic Paper Crafts page.  How's that for a mouthful?  As a Scandinavian, I found this whole website pretty awesome, but looking specifically for our woven hearts, they have some seriously cool templates.  The pink and purple heart I made up above came from the third link.  It's the one in the upper left hand corner on the template page.  I found out quickly that this can go from a simple craft to a challenging one very fast!  I should also note that I altered the template by cutting all of the lines up to the same height.  How you would weave it otherwise, I have no idea!


There's still time to make homemade valentines and this is a pretty fun project.  I guess I should also mention that they open up like little baskets.  You can cut a strip of paper and tape or staple it into place.  You could slip a sweet note into the basket or even a little treat.  Once again, if you look at the Family Fun page, they have a picture of one with a handle and some red stuffing.  Gee, I just realized that our hearts our sideways instead of right side up.  I guess we'll have to make some more!