Heart Critters

Craft Fun Foam Critters:
Kitten, Puppy or Tropical Fish

by Twila Lenoir

These heart shaped critters have lots of uses. They’re a natural for Valentine’s Day, but also make great zipper pulls, fridge magnets or decorations for picture frames or mirrors. Because they are made from thin craft foam, each critter is easy to to add to a greeting card as a special one-of-a-kind greeting for someone special.

To Make All Three Heart-Shaped Foam Critters

You Will Need:

• craft fun foam sheets in your choice of colors
• printed heart shape pattern (also shown below)
• paper punch
• plastic goggle eyes
• black yarn
• permanent black marker
• scissors
• glue

Puppy, Kitten or Fish Fun Foam Critters – Instructions:

1. Print the heart shaped pattern, shown at right, which includes three hearts of different sizes, labelled A, B and C.

2. Puppy: Cut two “A” hearts and one “B” heart. Place the “B” heart upside down and glue the two “A” hearts in place on the back, placing them as shown in the photo. These are the puppy’s ears.

Turn the puppy over and glue on the goggle eyes. With a black marker, draw on a nose, with a line going down to the ident of the heart. Add small dots on either side for the whiskers. Glue on a few strands of yarn or thread as longer whiskers.

3. Kitten: You will need one “B” heart and two “C” hearts for the kitten. Follow the same directions as for the dog, using the “C” hearts for the kittens ears and looking at the photo for placement. Add a small triangle of pink fun foam, felt or paper to each of the ears.

4. Fish:

Use one “B” heart and one “C” heart for the fish. Glue the “C” heart on top of the “B” heart as the tail. Add a plastic eye and, if you like, draw wiggly lines on the tail or scales on the fish body with a magic marker.

For All Critters: Finally, if using the critter as a zipper pull, punch a hole in one ear or on the tail of the fish. Add a small wire key ring which you can also attach to the end of a zipper.

If you like this craft, you may also like to see how to make a Fun Foam Ladybug

Variations: Consider making these heart-shaped critters from felt or construction paper. See if you can create other creatures from heart shapes – perhaps a bird, using hearts as the face and body with the smaller hearts as wings, or why not cut a heart in half to make two fun foam mice?