My granddaughter and I had a lot of fun this past weekend painting and decorating paper plates and then turning them into useful pockets.  While the original intent was for it to be a pocket to collect Valentines in, my granddaughter also decided it made a wonderful purse. I think it could easily serve both purposes!

Supplies Needed to Make a Paper Plate Heart Pocket:

• 2 Paper Plates
• Acrylic or Tempera Paint
• Rick-Rack or Ribbon (for hanging)
• Craft Glue
• Items to Decorate (craft foam scraps, buttons, etc)

Tools Needed:

• Paint Brush
• Scissors

Start out by painting two paper plates. If you want to make a pocket more like my granddaughter’s ‘purse’ (you con see it completed near the bottom of this post) by cutting them both into heart shapes, paint the back side of both plates. If you want to make one that looks more like my red one, paint the back side of one plate and the front side of the other.

Let the paint dry and then cut the humps in the paper plate so it looks like a heart.  Depending on which style you are making, you will want to cut one or both paper plates.

Before you glue the two paper plates together, you will want to decorate them. My granddaughter had a ball using self-adhesive craft foam shapes. She also insisted on using buttons.  I opted to use small, craft foam squares. At first I thought it would look sweet and simple, but once I got my heart pocket together, it almost looked like a bosom to me. What do you think?

Now, we can glue the two paper plates together. Run a thick bead of craft glue around the edge of a heart –shaped plate. Set the plate with the glue on top of the other one. Try to line up the edges as well as you can.  Let the glue dry.

There is just one last thing to do – add the rick-rack or ribbon so you can hang or carry your pocket. For my red heart pocket, I cut a piece of rick-rack that was about 12-inches long. I folded it in half and glued the two ends to the back of the heart pocket.  To make a longer, purse-like strap, cut a piece that is 18- to 24-inches long. Sandwich each end in between the two paper plates or simply glue them near the top edge of the hart pocket.