We’re getting in the spirit of the Valentine’s Day holiday by making 3 Ingredient Play Dough clay hearts and hanging them on a festive Valentine’s tree!

Valentine’s Day Tree With Clay Hearts

After Christmas, I promised my son that we would make some clay hearts, similar to the stars and bells that we have made in the past for the Christmas Tree. And then I thought, why not go all the way and make a Valentine’s Day Tree? The best part is the clay is made from regular household ingredients!

Supplies:

• Homemade clay (directions below)
• Rolling Pin
• Heart shaped cookie cutters
• Stamps
• Glitter – we used red and holographic glitter
• Piercing tool, like a paintbrush or chopstick
• Baker’s twine
• Dried branches and a vase or plant pot.

Homemade clay: 3 ingredient play dough

• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1 cup baking soda
• 3/4 cup water

Instructions:

Mix all the ingredients together in a sauce pan and cook over medium heat stirring continuously. Once the clay starts to be too thick to stir, turn off heat, and turn clay out onto a non-stick mat to cool. Cover with a light cloth to prevent the clay from drying out.

Once the clay is cool, you can make your hearts!

Glitter Hearts–

Add some glitter to small pieces of clay and mix in

Roll clay out to about 1/4″ thick, and cut out heart shapes

Use piercing tool to punch a hole for hanging at the top

Stamped hearts–

After rolling out your clay, gently press clean rubber stamps into the surface.

Then cut out your shapes

Heart silhouettes

Roll pieces of clay into long snakes, then shape them into hearts

Place your creations on a cookie tray lined with wax or parchment paper and bake at about 320 F for 15 to 20 minutes. We left our first batch in too long, and they became off-white in color! Check on the hearts every 5 minutes or so to avoid this happening to you! This clay will air dry, so if you have time, you can simply skip the baking and leave them exposed to the air for about 24 hours.

For the second batch I let Kieran loose with all the supplies

He had a fine time, and decided to add glitter to his hearts after they were cut out.

Once the shapes are cool from the oven, tie baker’s twine to the tops

and hang on your “tree”

We’re quite enjoying looking at it.

Want more Valentine’s Day ideas? See these darling Star Wars Valentine’s!

*Originally posted 1/26/15