Forest Glam DIY - Valentine's Day

I admit it. I'm a fan of forest glam (remember my kitchen light and my advent calendar?). Because it's organic. Because it brings the outdoors inside. And because it's free.

So I decided to make a little forest glam DIY for Valentine's Day. I don't know if it is luck, or if these bushes exist everywhere around the world, but here in Sweden we have some fabulous bushes with red branches. And what more appropriate time than Valentine's Day to use them for an earthy red heart. So I headed down to our local playground where there is an abundance of these leaf-less bushes huddling in the newly-fallen snow (unbelievably our first real snow of the year). I have no idea what kind they are, so if your horticulture knowledge surpasses mine I'll let you share with everyone in the comments below.

Want to make your own? It would be just as fun in natural brown branches - just follow these how-to steps. Begin by taking three of the longest branches and braiding them. It's a bit tricky but I held the base of the three branches with my left hand, and used the fingers on my right to push each branch around the other for the braid.

Next I took both ends of the braided branches and brought them both together at a single point to form half of the heart shape. I tied a piece of twine to temporarily hold the branches together while I worked on getting a good form in place. Do the same on the other side, and you will end up with the general shape of a heart. I repeated this process and even used a thin red branch as a 'tie' to hold the next group together to the first group.

Once you've done the braided twigs twice, you'll have a good heart outline that allows you to start weaving the rest of the twigs throughout the others. I kept the tie at the base relatively loose so that I could slide more twigs down through the bottom point. Keep going, with heart shape within heart shapes, twisting the branches and twigs in and out of each other.

Once I had a good amount of branches intertwined, I flipped over the heart. You'll see a concave shape to the heart which can then be 'filled' from the backside. 

To start filling in more spaces, I took twigs with several offshoots and simply brought the two ends together (same as with the original braided twigs) and tucked them into the concaves from the back side.

Once I had more twigs filled in from the back side, I made a simple wire hoop on the back to hang the heart.

I'm so happy with how she turned out. I've already decided she's either going out on the front of the house after V-Day, or on the backside pool area so that I can enjoy her all year long.

But for now she'll stay inside with us for the holiday. I'm just lovin' the heart-inside-heart-inside-heart effect of the simple twig bends.

Going to try your own? Have some ribbon or twine on hand to hold the base of the twigs as you build your heart. When you have your final twigs in place, re-wrap a new ribbon tightly to hold the base of the heart together (which is the main support for the entire heart shape). After I tied the final twine into place tightly, I was able to easily snip off the original holding twine. And be prepared for twigs to snap out of place every now and then. Just continue to intertwine and twist them back into place. That's the fun part!  

Only thing left? Get out and find yourself some twigs for a little forest glam DIY this Valentine's Day.

Until next time...

Mike

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