craft - yarn hearts

Just in time for Valentine's Day, a fun but very messy craft! These hearts are made of yarn that has been dipped into a cornstarch glue, then shaped into hearts and allowed to dry. Once completely dry they are quite hard, and make a rustic Valentine's Day decoration.

Here's what you need:

Yarn, cut into foot-long lengths (we used random yarn scraps, but found that cotton yarn worked best)
A sheet of parchment or wax paper
Heart shaped cookie cutters
Cornstarch glue (whisk together 1/4 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan, cook over medium heat until mixture thickens and appears shiny and slightly translucent, remove from heat)

Here's what you do:

Place a cookie cutter on the parchment paper. Take a piece of yarn, immerse it in the glue, run your finger and thumb along the length of yarn to remove excess glue, and gently place the yarn in the cookie cutter, allowing it to fall in loops. Repeat with more yarn until the heart looks good to you, gently press the layers of yarn down with your fingers and remove the cookie cutter. We found we had the best results when we frequently washed or wiped our hands to keep the glue-y messiness from getting out of hand. Manipulating the sticky yarn was tricky, but my six-year-old was delighted by the transformation from sticky, wet yarn to rigid decorative object!