Mini Danish Easter Baskets | Woven Heart Craft

For this week’s post I turned a traditional Danish woven heart craft, or pleated heart, into a mini Easter basket. Although the exact age and origin of the hearts are unknown, I was excited to find out that famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen made the oldest known pleated hearts in 1860. These hearts are commonly used as Christmas ornaments, but since the hearts Andersen made didn’t have handles, they probably were not intended to be ornaments. One of these hearts still exists today. It is located in the Hans Christian Andersen House in Odense, Denmark. To locate Odense, go back to the map on Post One of this series.

To make the the Mini Danish Easter Baskets, you will need the following:

Materials

1. 2 contrasting/complimentary sheets of pastel colored 8 1/2 x 11 in. paper 2. Pencil 3. Scissors 4. Glue 5. Hole Puncher (optional) 6. Ribbon (optional)

Instructions

1. Print out 2 copies of heart basket templates on different colored paper so that your finished heart will be two different colors. 2. Cut out one long oval template from each colored paper so that you have 2 different colored templates. 3. Fold each template in half and cut along the 3 black lines while keeping the paper folded.

Folding Template

Note: I used construction paper for my hearts because I didn’t have pastel copy paper handy. That is why the three black lines are not in the photo above. This method takes longer but is doable. First, I cut out a template to use as a pattern. Then I placed it on the construction paper and traced around it. I folded my oval that I used as a pattern over my construction paper oval so that I could use the black lines as a guide while cutting.

4. Next comes the weaving. This part is a little bit tricky. There is a great photo tutorial that explains how to label and weave the strips over at firstpalette. 5. Once your weaving is completed, it is time to add the finishing touches. You can make the handle by cutting a long strip of leftover paper from the hearts. Or you can use ribbon. I chose to use left over paper. 6. To decorate my handle I punched holes in my left over pink scraps and glued the dots onto my purple handle.

Finishing Touches: decorating the handle

7. Finally, stuff your heart shaped basket with shredded paper and add some jelly beans, mini malted eggs or other treats. These are fun for children to make and give to friends, neighbors, teachers etc. Or, if any dads out there are reading this, how about using thing these as Mother’s Day Baskets? Leave a comment and let me know what you did with your Mini Danish Easter (or whatever the occasion) Baskets.

This craft was adapted from the Woven Heart Basket Craft at firstpalette.com

The featured image photo at the top of the post is by lissalou66