Wood Heart Decor

Add a little sweetness to your wall or mantel with this chic DIY wood heart decor. Stain it in any color to match your existing decorating. Check out the tutorial to make one for yourself!

I am really excited to share our latest project with you! Not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but this DIY wood heart not only looks fantastic, it was super easy and inexpensive to make. It was totally made from one board that cost $12, not too shabby, huh?

I saw a picture of a similar wood heart and asked Mr. Wonderful if he could assist me in making one. Of course, he was obliging and we came up with a plan to make our heart based on what size would fit above our mantel shelf the best. You can change the size to fit whatever you need, but our heart is 26″ wide. If that will work in the space you have as well, then you can follow our instructions exactly.

I originally planned on staining it a little lighter color, but I ran into a snafu with the staining. I will tell you all about that later. The nice thing is, since you are making this yourself, you can stain it in whatever color you like best!

Conversation Hearts Mantel

Before we get into the tutorial, I thought I would share a bit about the mantel decor. Isn’t it cute? This year, I wanted to use those conversation hearts in my decorating. I have seen some people use them before and since I have not used pastel colored Valentine’s Day decorations before, I thought this would be the perfect chance.

I was originally going to fill a vase with the hearts and add some flowers but after seeing how small the bags were and how much it would take, I decided against it. So I used some smaller bottles instead! I guess I am just too frugal! Ha! 😉

I also used some larger candy hearts to make a simple framed art piece. Using some coordinating scrapbook paper for the background, I hot glued on some conversation hearts in a rectangle pattern. They did have some blue writing on the front, but I didn’t really like it so I just turned them around to glue them on.

You may recognize the felt heart garland that I just shared with you last week. The little felt hearts work so well with the conversation hearts and now you can see why I chose the colors I did. 🙂

I found these matching candy hearts boxes at Walmart! They were the perfect addition to the rest of the decorations.

Lastly, I covered some vintage books in some coordinating scrapbook paper to tie them into the color scheme. I tied them all together with some lace.

And of course, added some matching pillows, including the heart shaped pillows I made last year!

Sorry to chat your ear off, this probably could have been broken down into two posts, but you would have already seen the mantel in this one so I just combined them. Now onto the tutorial!

Supplies to make a wood heart

Normally I take a supplies picture, but I forgot to ahead of time! D’oh! However, I will list all the supplies and tools you need to make this wood slat heart decor.

Supplies:

• One 1″x 6″x 8″ piece of pine board
• 1⅜” straight finish brads, 18 gauge
• ⅜” round wood dowel
• Wood Glue
• Stain color of your choice – I used Minwax Dark Walnut
• Foam brush

Tools:

• Table saw
• Miter saw
• Finishing nailer
• Sliding square
• Hand rasp

How to make a wood heart

The first step is to cut your pine board, using a table saw, into slats measuring ⅞” wide.

Using the miter saw, these slats will be cut down into 21 pieces of different lengths. We tried to maximize the most pieces we could get out of one slat and ended up with one whole slat left over so you should be good no matter in what order you cut these. Below are listed the length of the slats you need to cut and next to them are how many of that length you need to cut.

• 21¼” – 1
• 20⅞” – 2
• 20½” – 8
• 19¾” – 2
• 17½” – 2
• 15⅝” – 2
• 12⅞” – 2
• 9¾” – 2

To save time and help each side be the same, Mr. Wonderful cut two of the same size at the same time.

After you get all the lengths cut, you can arrange them in a heart shape starting with 21¼” in the middle, followed by 20⅞” on each side of it. Then add four of the 20½” length on each side. After that just goes in descending order on each side with the 9¾” lengths on the ends. You will have to arrange the slats into you get them into your desired heart shape.

Cut some braces

We cut two braces out of the remaining slat that we had. These were 26″ in length. Mr. Wonderful rounded off the ends of each side as these braces would be seen from the side. The rounded edges gives the heart a more finished look. To make the rounded edge, he cut the bottom tips of the ends at a 45 degree angle and used a hand rasp to smooth out the edges. The braces will lay under the heart so that they match up with the ends of the shortest slats on each side.

Mark the slats ahead of assembling the heart

Now is the time to arrange the slats exactly how you want your heart shape to look because you will be marking the slats so you know where they need to go when you nail them down. Mark each slat individually so you don’t mess up the arrangement. Using a pencil, draw a line on the underside of each slat where it meets up with the brace. To save marking time, take the matching size slat from the other side of the heart, place it next to the marked slat. Using a sliding square, continue the line to the matching sized slat.

It is also a good idea to continue this line a little up on the sides so it will be easier to see when nailing down the slats. This is something we didn’t realize until later, so it will make it easier for you to do it now. 🙂

When you are assembling and before marking the heart slats, look for any saw marks or imperfections like these that you want to hide. Just turn these imperfections down so they don’t show on the finished heart.

Now that all the slats are marked for placement, you can take them off the braces and lay them to the side arranging them in order so it makes it easier to know which one to grab when you are assembling the heart. You will also need to mark a line on the sides of the braces at the midway point (13″). This is where you will line up the center slat in a couple steps.

Assemble the wood heart

To start assembling the wood heart decor, line up the braces with the shortest slats on each side. Add some wood glue to each end of the slat and nail it down on the braces on each side.

Next, grab the 21¼” slat that will go in the center of the heart. You will mark a line along the center of the 7/8″ width below the line that you previously marked for placement. This is so you can line in up with the previously marked lines on the braces. This will ensure that the center slat is in the exact center of the heart. To keep the lines matched up, it was easier to nail on this slat from the back, instead of the front like with the rest of the slats. Nail it down at this time.

Flip the frame back over, at this point you should have the two end slats and the center slat attached. Now you need to start attaching the slats in between. To make sure the spacing between the slats stayed consistent, we used a ⅜” wood dowel. This wasn’t exactly perfect as we found out later, not sure if the dowel size was just a bit small or what. However, it makes for a really good guide so I would still use it. Starting from the outside, add the slats back onto the heart and line up the placement line. Put the dowel in between them as you go to use as a spacer as you nail the slats on. Nail the brads in at a slight angle to make sure they don’t come through the back of the slats.

We worked on one half of the heart first, adding the three slats closest to the end first, followed by the three slats closest to the center of the heart. We did have to adjust the space in between the last three middle slats just a bit, to make sure the gaps were not too big. Just pay attention to that as you go along. It is really just giving a little wiggle room for the dowel.

Repeat these steps with the other side of the heart. We also added a couple nail holes in the center slat of the heart on the front, just so it didn’t stand out as different. You can also fill the nail holes if you want to, but I didn’t feel the need to do that.

Staining the heart

Originally, I wanted my wood heart to have an aged look to the wood. I remembered using an aging stain on our DIY tobacco basket a long time ago and that turned out great! So I decided to do that again. To make the aging stain, you just put a piece of steel wool into a jar of vinegar and let it sit overnight. So I did that and got to staining it the next day.

Although this time, it did not turn out so great! It was way too red in tone. After looking back at the tobacco basket post, I see that we used a foam brush to apply the vinegar, where I used the steel wool to rub it on. I think that’s where I went wrong here! Ugh!! You can try it if you want, but I can’t guarantee success. It may also be due to the different kinds of wood and how they reacted to the aging stain. Not sure! So back to the drawing board.

I knew I would have to stain the heart darker to cover up some of the red, so I went through our stains and found some dark walnut color. Since he has more staining experience, I recruited Mr. Wonderful again and we used a foam brush to apply it in between and on the slats and then an old T-shirt piece to wipe it off.

This stain covered great and it ended up looking fantastic! It was a little darker than I originally wanted for the mantel, but I reworked some of the decor on the mantel to bring in some other wood aspects and now it works well.

What do you think? If you have the tools, it really is an easy project to make! And at such an unbeatable price! I hope you all have a Happy Valentine’s Day! Chat soon friends!