hand applique elbow patches...

i love valentine's day! 

hearts, flowers, glitter, pink, lips... what girl wouldn't love this holiday?!

so i wanted to put together some diy projects just for valentine's day.

one trend that i have been seeing all over pinterest is the diy elbow patch.

and in honor of this special holiday, i thought that it would be perfect to make some heart patches.

i didn't have to spend a dime on this project because i already had all of the supplies.

but if you don't have a shirt that you want to alter with patches- just stop by a thrift store and i'm sure that you can find plenty that will work.

i also luckily had some gold sparkly fabric on hand for my patches.

but if you don't have any fabric either, you can look at a thrift store for any clothing items made out of cute glittery fabric or any other type that you may want to cut up and use... {or just hit up your nearest fabric store!}

 ok, so here we go...

what you will need:

1.shirt

2. fabric for patches

3. iron and ironing board

4. paper

5. straight pins

6. needle

7. thread

8. freezer paper

9. scissors

10. pen

first, you are going to take the freezer paper {and i will explain why this is used later}, and make your heart template.

pin your template onto the fabric and cut around it. 

the fabric that i used unravels easily so i left about a half inch of extra fabric around the heart.

freezer paper will lightly stick to the fabric, making it much easier to iron the edges down.

if you are using a fabric that will unravel, it is important to iron the edges to prevent unraveling.

mark your shirt where your elbow patch should go.

slip your paper into the sleeve so that you can pin and stitch without catching the bottom fabric.

pin all around the heart.

start stitching!

if you aren't sure how to hand stitch- there are lots of tutorials on youtube.

i used a very small stitch to prevent unraveling.

but feel free to use a larger stitch if you are using more heavy duty fabric.

{this took me a while but i just turned on gossip girl and it was actually really relaxing.}

and you're done!