Oh my word, January is almost gone and I’m so happy, it’s been a looooong, lean month. Has it been a rough one for you too? The end of the month also means it’s time for the International Bloggers Club Challenge. If you’re visiting for the first time, the IBC is a group of bloggers from all over the world who get together at the end of every month to share their projects. Last month we repurposed a rusty metal frame into a small craft table and this month we’re sharing Valentine’s crafts.
I’ll let you in on a little secret, I went to the deepest, darkest recesses of my craft cupboard to try come up with an idea. Ribbons and wood scraps and paint and noodles and ice cream sticks all went flying. Suffice to say, bits of all that crafty chaos madness finally became these rustic topiary heart place card holders.
Wanna know how I did it? Those rustic topiary place card holder hearts were made out of a pool noodle. Yup, a pool noodle ;-) Are you surprised? If I had the moola, I would have toodled off to the craft shop and bought me some of those polystyrene hearts.
But no moola means you gotta make a plan and the IBC is very close to my heart. These ladies have been there for me and they always come up with the most amazingly creative things. There was just no way I was not going to let my tribe down.
I get by with a little help from my friends
And to be honest I actually had a lot of fun carving the hearts. They were a lot easier than I thought. It was almost as therapeutic as carving our giant skeleton key.
Making Rustic Topiaries from Pool Noodles That Look Real
Using a craft knife slice the bits of the noodle off. It should look almost like a spinning top. (I’m hoping the pics below help explain what I’m trying to say) Once the bottom had been carved away, I made a nick in the top and shaped the rest of the heart.
It’s kinda like peeling an orange with a craft knife :D
To mimic leaves I roughened the hearts up a bit with a grater.
And then we sprayed those hearts green.
While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I took a walk around the garden and found some twigs that would make great trunks. The pool noodle had a hole right down the middle, so the twigs were just glued inside. To hide the hole on top of the heart, spray and glue some of the leftover pool noodle bits over the hole.
Fill a few tin buckets with soil and add plant the rustic topiary hearts.
For extra love, you can tie little hearts made from bits of bark to the buckets. Since these are supposed to be place cards, I thought I’d write the names on the bark hearts. But the bark is rough and every time I wrote something it looked like a drunk spider had fallen into a bucket of paint before trying to crawl home. So I used ice cream sticks instead to make little signs.
Oh, how I wish I could sit around a table with these special ladies, Katrin, Keri, Mary, and PIli. Since that won’t be happening anytime soon, the best I can do is create a virtual table and add their names to the place cards.
There will always be a piece of my heart that smiles when I think of you.
I’d love to know what you think of the pool noodle place card holders. Is it something you would make to add to your table decor? If carving pool noodles isn’t quite your style then you’ll love these little topiaries we made from beads.
If you like the idea of making rustic topiary place card holders from a pool noodle don’t forget to pin it for later.
Do you have any special plans for Valentine’s Day? I must admit, we don’t really make a big thing of it. We prefer to surprise our loved ones with gifts and love notes throughout the year. What about you? I’d love to hear how you celebrate, or not. Either way here’s wishing and your loved ones a beautiful February and remember to pop on over to see what craftiness the rest of the IBC have come up with.
Oh before I forget, if you don’t want to go to all that trouble and find some of the materials we used, we’ve got you covered Disclosure: Clicking on the links below, means we may receive a commission from Amazon. But don’t worry it won’t come out of your pocket, and it helps us come up with more crafty ideas to share with you ;-)
Last update on 2026-04-15 / Source Amazon Affiliates
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