Heart Attack Valentine’s Day Activity with Cricut

Create this fun Heart Attack Valentine’s Day Activity for your kids or a loved one! This fun activity is sure to make them feel extra special this Valentine’s Day! All you need is a little time, a Cricut Maker, Cardstock and Glue!! 

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

I always love celebrating Valentine’s Day! For our family, it’s not about red roses and chocolates. It’s more about pink pancakes for breakfast, being ‘Heart Attacked’, a note about how much I love them in their lunches (along with some Valentine’s Day Lunchbox Jokes), a more special dinner and a family movie night or activity! We always celebrate Valentine’s Day as a family.

You can check out my Kid-Friendly Valentine’s Day Menu for fun ideas for your meals if you’re looking for some. I’ I also love to print out some fun simple games for my kids to do. Such as this Valentine’s Day I Spy, Valentine’s Day Word Scramble, Valentine’s Day Word Search, Valentine’s Day Memory Game and Valentine’s Day Bingo. If you’re not into staying home for Valentine’s Day, check out these ideas for Family Date Night Ideas!

Valentine’s Day Heart Attack

Today I’m sharing the tutorial for how I made this fun Heart Attack Valentine’s Activity for my kids this year! I wanted to make it a little extra fun, so I used my Cricut to make these tear away hearts using the Cricut Maker Perforation Blade. This made it more of an activity for them!

Valentine’s Day Countdown

I am going to put them all over their closets on the morning of February 1st. Then every day they’ll get to open a new heart and see one more reason that I love them!

You could also just give them 1 heart a day if you want! The way you display or do the countdown is totally up to you!

Heart Attack Valentine Countdown Supplies:

• Cricut Maker (w/ Fine Point Blade)
• Perforation Blade
• Single Scoring Wheel
• 12×12 Light Grip Mat
• 12×24 LightGrip Mat
• 12×12 Cardstock (I used 3 different shades of pink from the Red Tones Cardstock collection)
• 12×24 Cardstock (for rosettes also from the Red Tones Cardstock collection)
• Black .4 Cricut Pen
• TruControl Knife
• Self Healing Mat
• Aleena’s Tacky Glue
• Foam Dots
• Pink Distressed Ink

If you’re shopping on Cricut.com, use code OTBM10 to save 10% and get FREE shipping on all $50+ orders. That’s on top of the 10% discount Cricut Access members get automatically! 

Heart Attack Valentine Countdown Instructions:

Start by opening the Cricut Design Space File for the Perforation Hearts, Numbered Hearts, Pull Tabs and Background Hearts.

This Design Space file is currently set up to cut 14 perforation hearts, small hearts numbered 1 through 14, 14 pull tabs and then 7 larger hearts to go on the back of 7 of the 14th perforation hearts. Later, I’ll share the tutorial on how to make the rosette hearts for the other 7 perforation hearts!

The designs are set to be three different colors (I used three different colors of pink cardstock).

If you need to make any additional changes to this design, go ahead and make those changes now.

If no changes are needed, hit ‘MAKE IT’ in the top right-hand corner.

It will then show previews of all the mats that will be cutting. Make sure that everything has split onto the different colored mats the way you want them.

Once everything looks good, hit ‘CONTINUE.’

Choose your Cricut Maker machine from the dropdown menu.

Then select your material. For this project, I used Medium Cardstock.

Once you’ve selected the material, it will prompt you on what tool to load into your machine. Mine prompted me to first load the perforation blade.

Load your LightGrip Mat with the appropriate colored cardstock and load it into your Maker machine.

When the ‘C’ button on your machine is flashing, go ahead and hit it and it will start cutting the hearts with the Perforation Blade.

Once it’s done cutting the Perforation Hearts out, then Design Space will prompt you to install the Fine-Point Blade into your machine. It will then proceed cutting out the rest of the mats!

Load each mat appropriately and finish cutting out each mat as Design Space prompts you to.

Once you get to the light pink cardstock mat, it will prompt you to load the Black .4 Cricut Pen. It will then write the numbers 1 to 14 for you. After completing the writing, it will prompt you to load the fine-point blade back into the machine and it will cut around the hearts and also the pull tabs.

How to Add a Pull Tab to a Perforation Cut

The first part of assembling the Perforated Heart is adding the pull tab!

Take your perforated hearts, pull tabs and TruControl Knife. I chose to use my Self Healing Mat, so I wouldn’t ruin my desk surface.

Use your TruControl Knife and cut a small slit in the top right-hand corner of your perforated heart. This is creating a spot for you to slip the pull tab through.

Turn your heart over and adjust the pull tab, so that just a small amount is sticking out on the front side of the heart. Use a strong glue to glue down the back of the tab. I used Aleena’s Tacky Glue.

While the glue on the pull tab is drying, take your solid hearts and write the different reasons you love them in the center of the heart. If you’re familiar with the writing tool, you could also use it. I decided to just handwrite them this time!

Next, you’re going to glue the perforation heart onto the background heart (the heart with the writing on it). Again, Aleena’s Tacky Glue worked like a pro!

Don’t apply it too thick! And make sure not to get glue on the perforation cut or inside the heart. This will cause problems when your loved ones go to tear the heart open.

Use Distressed Ink to Finish Edges

While the glue is drying, I moved onto the numbered hearts. I wanted them to have a finished look, so I grabbed my pink distressed ink and inked the edges. It was too hard to get to the inside of the top of the heart, so I just put ink on the tip of my finger and used my finger to get in there.

I attached the numbered heart using a foam dot.

To finish off the first seven of the hearts, I wanted to add one more background heart to create some layering! Again, I used the pink distressed ink on the larger light pink hearts and glued the perforation heart to the larger heart!

How to Make a Heart Rosette

I didn’t want all 14 Countdown Hearts to look the same, so I decided to make heart rosettes for the other 7 hearts! Last year I made these fun Sucker Valentine Topper using mini rosettes and so I knew that I wanted to go the rosette route again! Lucky for me, Design Space had heart rosettes that I could use!

Start by opening this Heart Rosette Design Space File!

Follow the same steps I shared above, by making any edits needed. Each rosette will need 2 long “strips” and two hearts. After the edits are made, hit ‘MAKE IT’ in the top right-hand corner.

For this project, you’ll need 12×24 sheets of cardstock and the 12×24 LightGrip Mat.

Verify that you have 4 mats of cuts ready to go. In total, you’ll need 14 strips and 14 hearts. This will create 7 heart rosettes! Choose your machine from the drop-down menu and follow all prompts.

To create the rosettes, you’ll need the Single Scoring Wheel and the Fine-Point Blade. The cardstock will first be scored and then cut.

Heart Rosette Assembly Instructions

To assemble the Rosette Heart, the first thing you’ll do is glue the two long scored strips together. You can use the Aleena’s Tacky Glue or a hot glue gun!

Once the two pieces are glued together, then you will accordion fold the entire strip. Then glue the two ends together to form a circle.

Get your glue ready and if you have another set of hands around, ask them for some help.

Use two hands to push down the rosette heart and arrange it best you can. Add some hot glue to the extra heart and apply it to the center of the heart rosette and hold it for 15-20 seconds. Flip it over and repeat.

To finish the heart, you’ll glue the perforation heart to the rosette heart.

That’s it! You’re done! Woohoo!

Now leading up to Valentine’s Day, your loved one can open a heart a day to read a reason you love them!

They will love being able to open the hearts each day, it just makes it extra fun!!

Looking for some fun Kids Valentine’s Handouts and PJ’s that can be made with your Cricut Machine? Check these out!

• Crayon Holder Valentine, Valentine Treat Bag Topper, and Sucker Valentine Topper 
• Gumball Valentine (and matching Valentine’s Day Box)
• Valentine’s Day PJ Designs

CRICUT TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

If you’re new to Cricut, make sure and check out some of my Cricut Educational posts!

• What Cricut Accessories Should I Buy? – New Cricut user? Then this post is for you!
• Everything You Need to Know about the EasyPress 2 – The EasyPress 2 is a game-changer when it comes to using Iron On! Come learn everything you need and want to know about using it!
• Tips for Using Iron On Vinyl – This is one of my most popular Cricut Educational Posts! Come learn all you need to know about using Iron On Vinyl!

If you’re shopping on Cricut.com, use code OTBM10 to save 10% and get FREE shipping on all $50+ orders. That’s on top of the 10% discount Cricut Access members get automatically! 

 

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If this post was helpful, I’d LOVE you to pin this fun project! Have a great day!