A Heart Filled With Happiness

Today's story asks the question: what fills your heart with happiness? This is a great question to ask yourself! What things do you like? What brings you joy? Thinking about what makes you happy can be a really good way to focus on that, and this craft will help you do just that.

Plus, bonus: it's super cute.

-construction paper

-printer paper

-markers

-glue stick

-scissors

-pencil

To make your paper heart, you'll want two layers of construction paper to give it extra structure. You can use two hearts of the same color if you want, but I liked the look of a contrasting layer. I chose purple and black, but your heart can be whatever color you want!

Choose which color you want on top. Fold your construction paper in half and draw half a heart on it, making sure the center of the shape is on the crease. The size doesn't matter too much, but you don't want to make it too small, or it'll be hard to glue together. Mine is about the size of my hand. Cut it out.

Fold your second piece of construction paper in half. Fold the first heart in half again and lay it on top of the folded paper. Trace around the first heart, but leave some extra space. You want the second heart to be a little larger than the first. Then, cut it out. Now you have two hearts!

Glue the smaller heart on top of the larger one. I really like how the purple and black look on top of each other!

Let the glue dry, first. You can cut right down the middle, following the center crease.

You can cut straight along the bottom of your piece of paper. You can use construction paper, too, it's just easier to fold if it's a little thinner. The width isn't too important. Mine was about two inches wide, I think.

Lay your paper flat on the table, and fold both ends inward. Then, flip it over, and fold both ends inward on the other side so that both sides meet in the center. When you're done, if you look at your paper from the edge, it will look kind of like a pair of legs and feet. That's how you know you did it right!

Put glue on the top edge of your folded strip of paper on both ends. Then, stick each half of your heart onto the folded strip of paper, like you can see in the pictures above. Then you will have a heart that you can pull apart to see a message!

Now comes the thinking part. What makes you happy? What fills your heart with joy? Write some of those things down on the paper in the center of the heart!

I added pretty flowers to the sides of my paper strip.

Now I can open and shut my paper heart to remind myself what fills my heart with joy!

You can also use these instructions to make a really cute card or message to give to someone. Maybe you could make one for someone who fills your heart with joy so you can tell them why?

And don't forget to keep doing the things that fill your heart with happiness! You deserve them!