On Valentine's Day

Good evening,

Tonight, we will be learning how to cut out a heart and serve it on a platter. No, wait. Why do body parts always have to be served on platters? Let's serve this one on a card. Yes, that's it! Carve out your heart and serve it on a card. That's better. More functional, too!

First, you will need a pencil, scissors, a ruler, glue, and two pieces of papers cut into quadrangles. I'll give you some time to go collect those things. Maybe a tissue as well, because you know - it is a heart!

With the two quadrangles, one will be your card and the other will be your heart. You decide on the colours. Here's an idea: the card can be blue and the heart can be pink. Just make sure that the card is a bigger quadrangle than the heart quadrangle. Fold the card quadrangle in half, lengthwise.

Now for the hard part: open-heart surgery...here we go! Take the heart quadrangle and fold it in half. Cut out half a heart. Do this 4 times. This means 4 different quadrangle-shaped pieces of paper, not 4 hearts cut out on the same paper into tiny little pieces.

Got it? Ok, with your 4 hearts, still folded in half, take one and measure. Yup, that's what the ruler is for. However, the YouTube video would not zoom in to show the very detailed measurements. Therefore, I will take a different angle on the locations of the heart measuring. Imagine that a heart has 4 chambers. If the top chamber has an odd name like perhaps an atrium, then let's call the bottom half of the heart a ventricle. 

Now we want to just make a tick on the right atrium and right ventricle. Somewhere in the middle of each chamber would be great, but the tick goes at the edge of the heart.

There should be 4 ticks in total. Imagine that the centre of the folded heart is the left atrium and ventricle and mark accordingly. Now for the moment of truth: can this art project be completed without visual aids or is that the whole fun of this exercise? To get different results!

The final step is the gluing. According to the video, you just need a slit of glue on each of these 4 tick marks. I would call it the 4 corners of the heart if it wasn't folded. Once the slivers of glue have been added to one folded heart, attach the back of a second folded heart on top and press. Repeat. I'll repeat, in case the last step wasn't clear. Add the thinnest later of glue at the 4 points marked on the 2nd heart you cut out and press the back of the 3rd heart against it. Repeat once more. In the video, it seemed like there was a left and right heart, but I don't think it matters. As long as you can attach all 4 hearts together, at these 4 points, back-to-back, the effect should work.

The final, final step: mark 4 more ticks on your final heart, front and back, and glue to the inside of your card. If you have instant glue, like in the video, the pop-out heart will look amazing upon opening the card.

However, if you don't want to undo the last hour of your hard work, you can carefully double-check that you did not miss any glue at the 4 corners, add any more specks of glue that you think you might need, and let it dry overnight.

I am sure that there are many variations that can be done for this design. Different colours, sizes, or shapes, but the big red pop-out heart-in-card Valentine's gift just seems classic!

I hope you have a romantic evening planned with your loved ones. If anything, it will be fun to see this 4-chambered heart pop out of someone's chest, er, I mean card...make it one to remember and maybe we will get an early winter...

While I'm at it, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Happy Hanukkah and Kwanza, Martin Luther King Day, and Rosh Hashana. Oh, and Happy Groundhog Day.

References: https://youtu.be/vItZ24Pheu8