An Easy Valentine Craft

The "vase" is a Crystal Light container covered with pink felt. The heart is painted with Martha Stewart Glitter paint. You can find patterns for crocheted hearts all over the 'net.' I also cut some hearts from felt painted with glitter paint. The stems are stuck into a piece of Styrofoam.
This is on top of a hutch now, but if I were to put it someplace where you could see both the front and the back, I'd make doubles of the crocheted hearts and sandwich the stems between them. These are just 'sewn' in place.

Valentine Scrubbie & Tutorial

Here is a quick project. It measures about 5 x 4 inches.

I used an "H" hook here.

Make about 20 chains. This will be the width of your scrubbie from corner to corner, so make it as big as you like. You can do single crochets if you want, but HDCs are faster.(BTW, there's a name for this type of crochet, but I'm darned if I know what to call it.)

Half Double Crochet (HDC) in the 3rd chain from the hook, then all the way to the end.

Now, instead of going back in the other direction, continue around the back of the chain.

Keep going around and around like this. As you work, you will see little triangular 'pockets' forming at each end.

Once the 'pockets' meet each other, fasten off the yarn, leaving a long tail.

I save mesh bags from produce, and cut lengths of this for the heart. I actually sewed the pad shut before doing the heart, but I'd recommend doing it first because then you won't have a weird-looking back.

The cool thing is that you have diagonal rows that you can use as a guide for sewing the heart. You can use either a hook to pull the netting through, or one of those plastic needles with a gigunza eye.

After you embroider the heart (remember, it's a scrubbie, not haute couture. Nobody says you have to be a talented needleworker!), sew the pad shut with that long tail.

Now you have a little Valentine Scrubbie!