valentine diy: glowing cupid's arrows

 Happy February, friends! Today's valentine diy came about when I offered to help a friend make valentines for her kiddos to gift. Being youngsters, they are big fans of the ever happy glow stick so with that in mind I went to drawing board and here is what I came up with. 

Glow sticks are pretty delicate things. I originally had wanted to circle them into their bracelet shapes and stuff into pretty little bags. Alas, to shape is to bend and to bend is to break and so I had to go back to the drawing board. The glow sticks I was using were as straight as an arrow and so I thought...arrows! But how can I make them so that they have a little sturdy help? I sat and I sat and I thunk and I thunk and as I did so I held one lovely glow stick in my hands as inspiration. I thought thye were about the same size as a straw...a straw! I quickly got up and went into my pantry and pulled out a box of happily striped paper straws and an idea was formed! They fit! So grab yourself a pile of glow sticks and an equal pile of paper straws and get to crafting! 

Materials:

*glow sticks

*paper straws

*scissors

*felt or small felt sticky back hearts 

*white glue and glue stick

*red paper

*printer (optional) or pens

*hole punch

*wax paper to work on (it will keep your arrows from sticking to your work surface)

Grab a pile of paper straws and trim about a quarter of an inch of one end. You want the straws to be a smidge shorter than your glow sticks so that once nestled inside they can be easily pulled out.

I used pre-dandied felt hearts from Michaels, they were the perfect size, a bit larger than a quarter. If you cannot find pre-dandied hearts, use a pair of scissors and cut out your own from felt or pretty paper.  Flip hearts over so that their backs are facing up and draw a line of glue in the center. Place one end of a trimmed straw on top of the glue and allow to dry. You will want to pointy end of the heart to point AWAY from the straw. 

While glue is drying, create the tags that will fit your arrows. I printed mine out from the computer (there are oodles of fun free valentine fonts here and here) but you can write them out as well. I had a heck of a time thinking of something to write and so I hit up pinterest and found that there were oodles of glow stick valentines out there (even an arrow design)! Thank you, to the general pinterest public. Once I printed out my message, I trimmed around each one and used a glue stick to affix to scrapbook paper (Target has a fun Valentine's Day pack in their dollar section). Once the glue stick had dried, I punched a hole at each end with my hole punch. Your basic hole punch is the perfect diameter for the paper straws. 

Next up, assemble the glow sticks by carefully adding the connector tube at one end of each stick. Gently thread glow stick into straw, the connector will butt up against the end of the straw and will act as a handle for removal even after the feathered end is glued on.

 Cut our your feathered ends using red scrapbook or construction paper. I accordion folded my paper and cut into smaller pieces 2" by 3" and then trimmed into a proper arrow end shape. After folding each piece in half I added fringe by gently cutting into the sides with going all the way through. 

 Before gluing the ends of the arrows onto your straws, carefully thread your tags onto the straw. To glue ends on, place each end face down onto your wax paper. I use wax paper in case any glue drips out. Glue is easily removed from wax paper, not so esily remove from a tabletop. Add your glue and rest the end of your arrow on top making sure you are at the pointed end of the paper and that the glue is on the straw and not the plastic of the glow stick. The fold in the paper allows for a nice hugging stick. Allow to dry. If yer feeling extra whimsical, try using feathers for the ends instead of cut paper. 

 Once dry, twist labels as needed and carefully bundle up in a shoe box or other container. The lid of an egg carton works pretty nicely. Pass out to friends and have a Happy Valentine's Day!