Scrap Wood Valentine

To begin this project, I rounded up a leftover piece of quarter inch plywood to glue my scraps onto.

(If you don't have quarter inch plywood sitting around, here are some examples of what I have used in place of this. I never worry too much about the appearance of the bottom piece, as the painted scraps will cover it.)

Next, the smaller scrap pieces get cut up into any size/shape desired. (Moto-Saw works great for this.) I used smaller sections of the thin plywood or some old garden stakes. This is a good time to play around with paint and get a color scheme going. It's much easier to paint the scraps now, before they are glued down. After the paint dries, I distress some edges just to give definition when they are pieced together.

Taking a piece of paper, a heart shape is cut out and used to trace onto the bottom sheet of wood. (This serves as a placement guide when gluing down the top scrap pieces.)

After playing around with placement and pattern, glue is applied and heavy objects and/or clamps used to secure until glue dries. (It is important to have good contact until the glue dries, so if I run out of heavy objects, I take a break and come back to it after glue sets and repeat gluing/clamping.)

When the glue is all dry, the paper heart cutout is used again to retrace onto the top scrap pieces.

Next the final heart is cut out on the Moto-Saw, by following the heart shaped trace line. (Be sure to follow safety, setup, and operating instructions included with the Moto-Saw.)

After the heart is cut, edges can be evened out by using your favorite Dremel tool- the Multi-Max or any Dremel Rotary Tool.

Next, any gaps between the scraps can be filled with painter's caulk, and a wet rag used to wipe up any excess.

Finishing up, a hole is drilled for ribbon or twine. And there you have it! Write a message on the back, and you've got yourself a big, scrap wood valentine.