Woven hearts tutorial

St. Valentine's coming and love is in the air =)
So I thought it's not a bad idea to share with you some simple technique of making a paper heart with 1 or 4 hearts inside of it.

Easiest version of woven hearts is well-known, and tutorials can be found here and there (for example the first link google shows when you ask it about 'woven hearts').
And that's a little more complicated version, I used it in my "When two hearts beat as one" card.

Let's begin. There's a scheme of heart petals: you may want to print them out or draw your own one - variable dimensions are present.

Cut along thick lines only. Dashed lines are there for easier understanding of the drawing.
Left pattern is used for heart-in-heart; the right one is for four-hearts-in-one.
For one woven heart you need two details: left or right AND a mirrored one. Hope the pics below help =)

So, you have two halves of a heart: of different colors and the same size, "mirrored" and having the slots cut (note: cut slots 1-2 mm more than it's shown on the pic, that will help a little during weaving). Place them as it's shown on the picture (I haven't erased the pencil lines so that it'll be easier to keep track of movements):


Lift the left and the central strip of the blue (left) half and tuck the whole green part in:


Lift the ends of all strips of the green part and place the left blue strip under them:


Leaving the left green strip in its place, continue with the central and the right one - under the first blue strip, above the second and under the third:


The only strip is left to be woven - above the blue, under the blue and again above:

So you have this heart in heart!

This picture is a close-up, where pencil lines and shadows help you to see how the heart-in-heart is formed: half of the little heart is a "flap", half of it is a "hole"

Glue all the ends of the strips down and cut the excess if necessary. Use as you like =)
Note: if you use double-sided paper the pattern on the reverse side will be the opposite - little heart is blue.

Next, we can make 4 hearts in one.
Print the right pattern (or draw yourself - it's very easy!), mirror it, use two pieces:


The process will be the same - take the whole green part and place it between the blue strips: above, under, above, under:


Leaving the first strip (the left one) of the green part, continue weaving the rest alternatively - under, above, under, above:


Two right strips of the green parts go above, under, above, under:


And the project's complete:

The hearts here are smaller, so you need more accuracy when cutting the arcs.
And again: glue and cut off.

Hope it helps =) If you use this tutorial anyhow - please, don't forget to provide a link to this blog. Happy scrapping!