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How to Make a Wooden Broken and Stitched Heart

How to Make a Wooden Broken and Stitched Heart

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Hearts are one of those objects that are loved by many people. The heart is a representation of love, but sometimes that love becomes broken, which you then have a broken heart. Broken hearts can be mended. That is where this broken and stitched heart comes from. Not necessarily from me (thankfully), but for someone else. Whether you can relate or not to having a broken heart, this one makes for a nice piece of wall art.

A heart is a pretty simple shape to make, but yet it can be challenging to make it look good. So unless you are good at drawing hearts (I’m not), head over to this previous article I wrote on How to Make Rustic Wooden Hearts for a downloadable template of a pre-drawn heart you can print out.

Suggested Tools and Materials

I made this heart with some normal pine wood you can find at any hardware store like Lowes or Home Depot. The one downfall of this wood is that it scratches fairly easy, so handle it lightly when working with it so you don’t get unwanted dings and scratches, unless that is a look you are wanting.

You may need the following:

  • Wood for the heart (I used pine)
  • Small hammer
  • Bandsaw, scroll saw, jig saw, or other similar saw that can safely cut curves
  • 1/16″ drill bill and drill
  • Sand paper (Medium and fine grits) with sanding block
  • 14 AWG copper wire (Paid Link)
  • Needle nose pliers
  • Propane torch (if you want to burn the wood)
  • Vise (handy when using the torch)
  • Good quality wood glue (I like using TiteBond III – Paid Link)
  • Painters tape
  • Keyhole Hangers (Paid Link)
  • Philips screw driver if using the keyhole hangers
  • Rags
  • Spray Polyurethane (Paid Link)

Make the Heart

This is a pretty straight forward project that can be accomplished by just about anyone with just a couple tools, but below are the basic steps on how I make these.

Cut out your heart and give it a broken cut line down the middle. I used the bandsaw for this, but you could use any saw that is capable of making curved cuts.
File and sand down all edges and faces of the heart. Dry fit the pieces to see how the break line looks. When you are satisfied with the look, use a good quality wood glue and glue the pieces back together. Use painters tape to hold them together. Let the glue cure for at least the manufacturers recommended time.
If you want to give the heart a burned look as I gave it, lightly mount it in a vise (you don’t want the vise to leave marks) and use a propane torch with light passes to evenly burn the wood from all sides.
If you burned the wood, I recommend taking a rag and wipe off all the loose sediment from the burned wood. This will help the finish stick to it better and you won’t get black stuff everywhere.
Use needle nose pliers to bend 14 AWG copper wire into a shape of a staple. The size will depend on the size of staple you want to make. I found that for me, the width of the flat part on the pliers is a nice size.
Cut it off with legs of approximately equal length and straighten the legs out so everything is about 90 degrees (the closer the better so it doesn’t bend when hammering it into the wood).
Using just your fingers, press the copper staple into the wood where you want the first staple. Don’t hammer it in yet. If you hit a hard spot in the wood, use the hammer to lightly tap the staple to make it leave marks.
It’s hard to see here, but all you want is to mark the wood where the staple will go into.
Next place some tape onto a 1/16″ drill bit to mark the depth you want the drill bit to go into the wood without it going all the way through but long enough for the staple legs without bottoming out.
Use that drill bit to pre-drill the holes you just marked with the copper staple you made. The tape will show you the depth to drill to.
Place that same copper staple into the holes you pre-drilled and then lightly hammer it in. Remember, copper is a soft metal and can bend easily. I recommend hammering each leg in, alternating each leg with the hammer.
Repeat the process for the next copper staple.
Finish the remaining staples using the same process. Since each staple has a good chance of being made slightly different from each other, use the staple you mark the holes with so that you know it will fit into the holes you pre-drill.
Add a Keyhole Hanger (Paid Link) or other hanging mechanism to the back of the heart. I like having it at a slight angle so the heart doesn’t hang level on the wall.
Spray on some Polyurethane on all sides. This will help protect the finish some and help prevent more of the burned wood finish from coming off.

Making this heart is fun and pretty easy. You can change it up by using different types of wood. Maybe try some exotic wood like Orange Osage and Purple Heart, or Zebra Wood and Walnut. If you want to stick with the easy to find and more affordable wood like Pine, you can paint or stain the two halves different colors.

If you make a bunch of these, make yourself a template like I did in this article…How to Make Rustic Wooden Hearts. It will save you some time and make each one consistent.

Rick Simper has various hobbies, including woodworking, metalworking, composting, and gardening. He is an Architect full time and uses these hobbies to get away from the busy week of Architecture.

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