I’ve been teaching Paisley how to use the scroll saw lately. And each time I’m giving her a lesson I draw out a handful of different shapes for her to cut out to practice keeping the blade on the line. One of her favorite shapes to cut out is a HEART, and that got me thinking it would be so fun to share a beginner scroll saw tutorial with hearts for Valentine’s Day! The kids loved watching this one come together, helping pick out scrapbook paper, and pictures of themselves to include!
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So cute right?! No scroll saw pattern necessary for this one. Just draw out a bunch of hearts! And if you don’t care to make this for Valentine’s Day, you could do any shape, really. A bunch of different sized circles with blue scrapbook paper would look like bubbles, and could be fun in a kids bathroom!
I started out with a slab of pine. The dimensions aren’t important here… you can make it as big or small as you want!
Draw out a bunch of hearts in different sizes with a pencil until it looks just how you like!
Drill a hole in each heart. This is to feed your scroll saw blade through!. (I have this drill)
Feed your scroll saw blade through one of the holes, and cut away! It goes faster than you think. (This is the scroll saw I use AND LOVE. But if you’re looking for a more affordable option, this one is SO perfect for beginners!)
I routed the edges and sanded smooth. But if you don’t want to mess with a router, you could skip this step altogether. OR, if you start out with a slab of wood that’s a common frame size (8×10 or 11×14) you could just pop it into a frame when you’re done!
My hearts are a little asymmetrical, but I’m confident about that.
Stain with whatever shade of stain you want! I went with this Minwax shade. In hindsight, I should have stained this baby before I ever cut the hearts out, because I got a bit sloppy dripping down the edges of the hearts. But not bad enough for me to shed a tear.
I thought about painting the inner edges of the hearts white, but ended up deciding on red because it seemed more Valentines-y! This is just basic acrylic craft paint. In the pic below, the lighting makes it look more hot pink. But I assure you, it’s red.
I love the contrast of the red with the natural woodgrain!
You could really stop there if you want. But I had the girls help me round up some pretty scrapbook paper from our stash, and a couple pics of them that would fit behind a couple of the larger hearts.
Flip that bad boy over, and start cutting your scrapbook paper to smaller pieces to fit over your heart-shaped holes! I just used a glue stick and slathered some around the edges. I saved the two openings for the photographs until last.
It was totally accidental, but the way Cypress is looking out the corner of her eyes looks like she’s looking at her sisters! Precious!
I popped this Valentine’s Plaque up on the gallery wall so fast, and it went perfectly with our already-pink theme!
If you’re looking for other Valentine’s craft ideas, be sure to check out our Beginner Heart-Shaped String Art tutorial!
And be sure to check out all our other scroll saw projects from the archives!
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I LOVE this!!! And that you are teaching your daughter. Girl power 🙂
Beautiful heart piece and thank you for sharing
Bethany,
I love your scroll saw ideas and want to purchase one very badly. I can’t afford a new one and have been checking out Craigslist and Harbor Freight Tools. They have less expensive models but you recommended not to purchase one under $200. Could you talk about what you look for in a tool such as this one? As with anything on Craigslist, it’s a case of buyer beware, but I thought maybe you might help me eliminate some of the ones I shouldn’t consider. This scroll saw would be used for crafting and making things for my home and possibly gifts but not to sell to anyone so it wouldn’t get that heavily used. Thanks for any help! And my goodness, are your girls getting big!
Maureen
P.S. I forgot to ask – could you tell us also about the picture behind the heart plaque you just made? Thanks again!
Hi Maureen! I know you didn’t ask me this question, but I wanted to throw in my two cents. I actually got started in scroll saw work because of Bethany’s blog and have been doing it for about 5 years now. We started with a Craigslist saw that cost $30. Since I had never used one before I didn’t know what I wanted or needed so having a cheap used tool was perfectly fine. I used it for a while and kind of learned what things I wanted different or what I liked so then I could put more money away to get something I really like. I currently use a Delta scroll saw from the 80s, another Craigslist find that I paid about $200 for. The ones that are similar to it are really high end saws that run around $1,000 or more, so again, I’m ok with the Craigslist saw. I use the circular blades, as opposed to the straight blades, so that it cuts when you move it in any direction. Also, my favorite part of my saw is that I have a pedal that I use with it. It’s like a sewing machine, so you make it go when you step on the pedal. I really like it so that if you need to stop quickly, you aren’t fumbling for the kill switch. This is a lot of info, sorry! But the point of my post was mostly that you can get something cheap from Craigslist to see what you like, don’t like, how much you use it, and to then decide how much you want to spend on a nicer tool. We do that with all tools that we buy for the first time. It’s a sort of test drive before we take the expensive plunge. Good luck with your search and with your new art!