• What you need:
• heart-shaped doilies
• embroidery floss
• large needle
• candy

My 6 yr-old granddaughter who wanted to make her own Valentine’s Day cards for her friends at school. Came straight to me for help and I came up with a cute idea that was fun and easy enough for her to make on her own. We made tiny little candy-filled heart sachet, tied up with a bow. We started with a packet of small (3-4?) heart-shaped paper doilies, which can be found at most craft stores (and are readily available on

eBay). The first step was to write the “to” and “from” message on each heart. It is much easier to do the writing now, while the hearts are flat, rather than later when they are full of candy! (Fig 1)

Then we took two hearts — one with a message and one left blank — and put them back to back (with red sides out) and matched up the designs as closely as possible (Fig 2).

We then threaded some

embroidery floss onto a large upholstery needle (for younger kids, try a plastic needle).We decided to use the floss because it was smooth and thin, and therefore easy to run through the tiny holes on the delicate paper doilies. You could also use yarn or VERY thin ribbon, and you can choose any color you like. Once we had the floss on the needle, we poked the needle through one of the holes in the heart. Following the pattern of the heart and using every 3rd or 4th hole, we made stitches back and forth, about a half-inch long each (Fig 3). We kept going until we were 3/4 of the way around the heart. (Imagine that the heart is a clock and start stitching at 12:00 and keep going until you get to 9:00)

With the stitching almost done, we stopped and filled the sachet with candy (Fig 4). We used the classic

conversation hearts, but you could use anything that’s small enough to fit, such as cinnamon hearts, M&Ms, or Skittles. We used about 8-10 pieces of candy for each heart (Fig 5). Be careful not to put too much candy inside, or else your paper might tear when you try to sew it up!

After putting the candy in, we picked up the needle once again and sewed the rest of the sachet closed, ending at the same place where we started (Fig 6). We then tied up the two ends into a little bow, trimmed any excess, and we were done! (Fig 7)

 You could even expand this idea to other holidays, using different shapes of doilies.

Now that I think about it, this would make a pretty neat wedding favor, too. You could use white hearts, floss to match the wedding colors, and put

Jordan almonds inside!

To make these stronger you can always use a clear sticky one-sided transparent covering. You will have to use a small sharp-pointed exacto knife to cut the areas for the ribbon to go through if you do this.

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