Face masks upcycled into hearts

Our family has a huge bag of face masks left over from COVID. As a teacher with two kids who attended school during the pandemic we had a collection to protect ourselves. I could not throw them away, so I kept them knowing I would come up with a way to repurpose them. With Valentine's Day approaching I though about creating fabric hearts with them. This craft was a simple and quick project completed with a glue gun.

Supplies:

1. Face masks
2. Glue gun and glue sticks
3. Poly fill stuffing
4. Iron
5. Pinking Shears

Instructions:

1. Gather your old face masks and cut off the straps on both ends.

2. Next, iron all the masks.

3. After, take your mask and fold in half and trace a half a heart on your mask.

3. Cut out the heart on the line you traced. DO NOT cut on the fold. This will allow you to have 2 hearts of the fabric ( my masks has 2 layers)

4. Take your 2 pieces of fabric and put glue along the edge of the fabric. Leave some room to trim the fabric after. Also, be sure to leave part of the heart unglued so you can fill it with poly fill. Quickly place the second piece of fabric on top before the glue dries. Don't worry if it is not straight as you will trim after filling with poly fill.

5. Fill with poly fill, I usually fill really full and push in, remember it will have to fill the entire heart shape once closed. After used the glue gun to glue your heart shut.

6. Finally, use your pinking shears to trim the edge of your hearts.

7. How CUTE did these turn out? I am so happy to have reused some of my masks to save them from the landfill.

Alternate option:

Another option is to used embroidery thread to sew around the edges. I really like choosing a contrasting color of embroidery thread.