Feather Heart Wreath DIY

This lovely feather heart wreath DIY is a great way to add some elegance to your Valentine’s Day decor. You could also use it year round in any room for a soft, delicate touch. 

Hey guys! Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so I am back today with the tutorial for this beautiful feather heart wreath DIY that I shared recently with my neutral Valentine’s Day decor. 

I had wanted to make some kind of heart wreath/decor to hang on my mantel for Valentine’s Day. So I started brainstorming ideas on what to make. I knew that I wanted it to be textured and neutral in color. I thought it would be really pretty to make a heart out of feathers, and I had never seen it done before.

So I had an idea in my head on how this heart wreath DIY project would look but no idea if I could pull it off! I looked for pictures of feather hearts but did not come up with much to go on. I did find some feather heart decor at Wayfair for a whopping $1099.99! I used that picture as inspiration. Oh, and mine costs a lot less than that to make! 😉 

Making a DIY feather heart wreath

I love coming up with new projects that have not been done before, but the hard part about that is that I have to figure it out as I go along! No instructions to follow or someone else working out the kinks in the project. Luckily for you, I have done just that! 🙂

The toughest part of this project was finding some good quality feathers. I looked at local craft stores but there was not much to be found. I needed some feathers that held their shape on the ends and were not too fluffy. They also could not be too small or too big, now I sound like Goldilocks. LOL

I eventually found these feathers on Amazon and they worked great! I would have liked to find some that were a little smaller and stiffer but these ended up giving the feather heart a soft and delicate look that I love. Also, it is soooooo soft to the touch. 

Supplies to make a feather heart wreath DIY

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

• Feathers (2 packages)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Two 13″ Chargers
• Wrapping paper
• White poster board or foam board
• Measuring Stick

How to make a large heart on paper

The first thing I had to figure out was how to make a large heart that looked good. I could always hand draw one, but I did not trust my artistic skills that much. Ha! Plus, that wouldn’t help you guys out either! The pallet board backdrop that this feather heart was going to hang on was 30″ x 30″, and I wanted my heart wreath to take up the majority of that space. There was no way to print out a heart template that big!

I used some kraft colored wrapping paper to draw my heart on (any color of wrapping paper would work, this is just to use as a template). First, I cut the wrapping paper to 30″ x 30″. I used some 13″ table chargers as a circle to trace the rounded portions of the heart. Towards the top of the paper, I traced one charger, then overlapped another on top of the first. I then traced the second charger.

Next I made a mark on the paper about 8-9″ down from the spot where the circles overlap. I placed the measuring stick along the bottom outside curve of each circle and drew a line connecting the curve to the mark I made in the center. Make sure the two lines on each side meet at the same point. 

This is not a super specific way to do it, but it worked for me. Next, cut out the heart shape.

You will end up with a pretty good looking heart, in my opinion. 🙂

Trace the heart onto a firmer material

I then traced the heart template onto some white poster board. I was initially going to use cardboard but I thought the brown color would show through the feathers too much. If I had to do it again, I would probably use a white foam board material as that would give it a bit more strength. My finished feather heart wreath does droop forward just a bit on the edges, although not enough to bother me. 

Cut out the heart shape from the poster board. To save a step, you could just draw the heart on the poster board in the first place, but I was not sure how the heart would turn out. I didn’t want to ruin the poster board by having to re-draw the heart several times.

Separate and trim your feathers

The feathers are advertised as 5-7″ in length so there are different sizes in the bag. I thought it would be better to have the biggest feathers on the outside of the heart and the smallest on the inside. I separated the feathers from two packages into four piles, with the biggest on the left and smallest on the right.

The feathers have a pretty long stem on them so I trimmed them down. This helped in two ways, it got rid of a lot of the fuzzy feathers towards the stem and made it easier to layer the feathers. You can grab a bunch at one time to cut them all together. Just a warning, do this over a garbage can because you will have fuzzy feathers flying everywhere! LOL

How to make a feather hearth wreath DIY project

Placing the feathers upside down, lay them out to see how they will look before you glue them down. Placing the feathers with the underside showing allows them to curve upward which gives the heart wreath more dimension. You can overlap the feathers a bit, especially when going around the corners. I also made sure the feathers hung over the edge on this first layer to somewhat hide the poster board beneath.

Run a bead of hot glue along bottom of the stem on the top side of a feather and stick it on the heart. Just know that once you glue a feather down, it is not coming back up. 😉 So make sure you lay it down where you want it. 

Starting at the top center of the heart, glue down the feathers overlapping as you go. When you get towards the bottom point, glue a feather straight out from the point first so it is underneath the two feathers beside it. This will give a more defined pointed look to the heart.

Continue gluing feathers onto the other side of the heart in the same way until you have the first layer done.

Glue feathers onto the consecutive layers

Again starting at the top center, glue down the second layer of feathers so that each feather lays in between two feathers of the first layer. Again, when you get the the point at the bottom, remember to glue down the point feather first.

This picture shows the dimension that gluing the feathers on upside down gives.

Continue in the same manner for the third and fourth layers as well. As you go along, use the biggest feathers first then work your way through the piles to the smallest feathers last.

How to make a feather smaller

For the very center of the heart, I needed very small feathers. Some of the feathers I had were still bigger than what I wanted but I was able to cut them down to the size I needed. Just cut off the bottom of the feather at the length you want it to be. Then pull off the feathers next to the stem until it is the shape you desire. It will give you a nice shaped feather in a smaller size. 

I filled in the center of the heart with these smaller feathers in a circular flower pattern until I got to the top where I laid three feathers going opposite directions.

Display your feather heart wreath

Since this DIY feather heart wreath is very light, I just hot glued a piece of ribbon onto the back of it to hang it from. I hung it from a nail on the pallet board backdrop.

This heart wreath is a a piece of art that I could easily see being used for more than just Valentine’s Day. I think it would look beautiful in a nursery or in a bedroom. You could even mount it onto a bigger backing piece and frame it! Whichever way you use it, I think it will be a gorgeous, creative and well-loved work of art!