DIY Grapevine Heart Garland – A Pretty Happy Home

Anthropologie is currently selling a grapevine heart garland for Valentine’s Day, and I thought I could make one for cheaper and put my own spin on the craft.

I was right, for once, about the cheaper part.

And I love putting my own spin on a craft, so this one was right up my alley.

I did not consult the Crafting Constitution to determine if there is a rule decreeing that a garland must be composed of like-sized items.

As you can see, the hearts on my garland are different sizes and don’t connect at the same point, but they are all strung together. I could hang it below the mantel instead of above it, but I like it where it is.

You do you. Make your hearts the same size or different sizes. Call it what you want. It will be beautiful, and there are no crafting police (internet trolls don’t count) to enforce the Crafting Constitution that does not exist.

There are two ways to make a grapevine heart garland.

If you have grapevines:

If you have usable grapevines, you can make a grapevine heart garland for practically free. You will need some wire, but the overall concept is pretty straightforward.

Trim and shape your grapevines into heart shapes. Depending on how many grapevines you group, your hearts can be thinner or chunkier. Secure the hearts so they keep their shape with brown raffia-wrapped floral wire. This will blend in with the vines and be hardly noticeable. Either string the hearts on a long string or wire the hearts together to make one continuous grapevine heart garland.

If you don’t have grapevines:

If you’re like me and had this idea in the dead of winter when grapevines are not supple and bendy, well, things might get a little complicated. Complicated is code for creative.

You’re going to use raffia-wrapped wire to simulate real grapevines.

I used a combination of raffia-wrapped wire and real grapevines because I had grapevines, but they were not as bendable as I needed them to be.

The directions for making a faux or partially faux grapevine heart garland are the same as using all real grapevines. The only difference is you’re going to use raffia-wrapped wire in place of grapevines.

What do you mean by a partially faux garland?

I used 3 to 4 strands of raffia-wrapped wire to make the actual heart shapes, but I augmented the hearts by wiring on straight segments of real grapevine, particularly in the V of the heart, to make each heart look more realistic. My grapevines were too dry to be able to bend at the top of the heart.

Did you know my heart garland wasn’t made of all real grapevines before I told you? If you didn’t, then my technique worked.

How do you make raffia-wrapped wire look like real grapevines?

You can buy pre-wrapped wire. You can also wrap your own wire with raffia ribbon. I did both because I was in a “where there’s a will, there’s a way to make this look realistic” mindset. I’m also a little bit of a glutton for punishment when it comes to crafting.

To make the raffia-covered floral wire look more realistic as a vine, you need to loosen the raffia around the wire by untwisting it a bit. You’re trying to make it look less uniform than how the wire is originally wrapped. This wire holds its shape really nicely if you want to curl it around a pencil to make the curly-Qs that you find on real grapevines.

If you wrap your own wire with raffia, you can choose a thicker gauge wire that will hold its shape better for larger hearts than the pre-wrapped wire. I used 4-strand, 20-gauge wire. If you unfold the raffia ribbon and then wrap it in an imperfect, hodge-podge fashion around the wire, overlapping it in places, you can mimic the bumpiness of actual grapevines. Secure the ends of the raffia with a glue stick.

If this sounds like too much work, you can always buy pre-made grapevine hearts!

There’s no shame in that game! Here are three options:

Anthropologie’s Grapevine Heart Garland
Amazon’s Grapevine Heart Garland
18-Count Pack of 4-inch Grapevine Hearts – and string them yourself!

Keep in mind that most of the pre-made grapevine heart garlands feature smaller hearts than the ones that I made for my mantel.

I tend to lean into the “go big or go home” approach to my crafts.

This DIY grapevine heart garland is no exception. It definitely fills the space and makes a large impact while still being whimsical and not overly cutesy.

Have you ever shaped grapevines into a heart? How did it go? Let me know! You can comment on this blog post, email me here, or reach out via direct message on Instagram or Facebook.

Happy Valentine’s Day!