Washi tape suncatchers shaped like hearts

I love washi tape. As you will see below, I have many, many rolls of it in a rainbow of colors and all the patterns you could imagine. I usually pick up at least one new tube of tapes every time I'm in the craft store. I keep it all in a cardboard box (with the Amazon smile on the side), and it makes me smile every time I see it.

My box o' washi tape inspired this craft. I was looking at it one day, thinking about what I could do with all the pretty colors and patterns, and I thought of our very old, very sad patio door that is covered in old tape marks (that I can't get off no matter what product I try - any ideas?). I like to cover that door in suncatchers partly to hide the ugliness and partly just because pretty things make me happy.

So with Valentine's Day coming up and all the pretty hearts and pinks and reds of my tapes, I decided to make a heart suncatcher. The great thing about these suncatchers is that the tape makes them sticky, so there's no need to further adhere them to the window.

And washi tape peels off very easily and cleanly, so there will be no new unsightly tape residue left on the already ugly door.

Let me be honest with you for a minute.

My kids didn't make this craft even though I intended for them to. They were busy with screens and didn't want to be bothered, so I made it all by myself.

For this reason, I think teens and adults with an ~~obsession~~ affinity for washi tape will enjoy this craft just as much as the toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and older kids who I intended the craft to be for.

The great thing about washi tape is that it requires absolutely no artistic skill which you will see in a moment. I promise you can make this and it will look awesome on your window, even if you can't draw a straight line. You can do this.

Washi Tape Heart Suncatchers

Materials

This is it:

Washi tape - Truthfully, most of mine has come from Michaels, AC Moore, or Hobby Lobby (because it's always an impulse buy for me), but Amazon has some great sets, too. I recommend the Aloha set, the AGU set, and the Mooker set as well as this holiday pack which I recently ordered and liked a lot.
Red cardstock or pink cardstock (I love the Neenah Astrobrights line and have gotten a lot of different colors from Amazon over the years. They're all vibrant and awesome.)
Scissors
A pen or pencil

Craft materials required for this project

Suncatcher Instructions

This really is super easy. You could make any shape you wanted (egg or bunny for Easter, pumpkin for Halloween, etc), but I wanted to make a heart since it's my favorite and Valentine's Day is approaching.
To make a heart, fold your paper in half the hamburger way as below, and draw half of a big heart that's almost as big as the paper. Then draw a second half heart that's about 1 inch smaller than the first one all the way around.

2. Cut the hearts out on the lines you drew and open up the heart on a surface that the tape won't damage. I thought it wouldn't damage my vinyl tablecloth (from JoAnn Fabrics, avoid this), but it did peel some of the pattern off.

3. Stick washi tape all over the heart. I am a linear thinker and wanted all my tape in orderly stripes across the heart. I am quite certain that if Allie were making a heart, she would give me heart palpitations by stringing her tape all willy nilly across in all directions and maybe not even covering all the empty space. That's the beauty of this craft. It's entirely up to the maker how she puts the tape on.

Stick washi tape to the heart you cut out

4. Peel the heart up from the work surface, turn it over, and trim off all the tape that sticks out past the edge of the heart. This just tidies it up a bit. I would recommend doing this for a small child, even a preschooler or younger elementary kid, because otherwise they may cut the cardstock heart and ruin the whole thing.

5. The heart is sticky in the middle, so you can pick it up just as it is and stick it right to the window. The tape covers the heart and the sun will shine through the transparent tape.

I made two hearts as you can see above, one with hearts and Valentines-y stuff and the other with my second love, cats.