It’s almost time for Valentine’s Day and we have a wonderful craft for adults with special needs. These no sew heart felt pillows are great for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who want to hone in their fine motor skills and range of upper-body movement. 

No sew heart felt pillows are a great teaching tool to help improve both dexterity and hand-eye coordination. They also help with range of movement for arms because heart shapes have both straight and half-round shapes. This craft does require some fiddly tying, so we’ve created another Valentine’s post for those who have a frustrating time with tying and other fiddly things. 

To Make a Heart Felt Pillow, You Will Need:

• Two 8x11 Sheets of Felt (this could be one red and one pink, two pink, two red, or one that is a solid color and one that is a pattern––whatever you like!)
• 8x11 Sheet of Card Stock or Paper (card is easiest)
• Pillow Stuffing
• Chalk or Erasable Pen
• Scissors

How to Make a Heart Felt Pillow

1. To make a template for your felt, draw a large heart on your 8 x11 sheet of card stock or paper. Make this heart almost as large as the paper. 
2. Draw a heart (2 inches smaller) inside the center of your original heart shape. 
3. Cut out your outer heart shape from the card or paper.
4. Now fold the heart in half and make a 1-inch snip in the very heart of your heart template.
5. Flatten out your template and use the snipped hole in the center to start cutting out the inner heart. At the end, you should be left with a 2-ish-inch heart outline. 
6. Take one sheet of felt and place the heart outline on top. Then draw around your outer heart shape and inner heart shape.
7. Stack your two sheets of felt on top of one another, with the heart outline on top.
8. Keep your two sheets of felt together as you cut around the larger/outer heart shape. Make sure that you don’t cut out the inner heart shape!
9. Once you have your felt hearts, cut in ¼ inch tassels using your inner heart as a guide. 
10. Cut tassels all the way around. 
11. Keeping the two felt hearts aligned to each other, tie one red together with its respective pink counterpart tassel. Do this almost all the way around, leaving a space big enough for you to place in a handful or two of pillow stuffing. 
12. Stuff your pillow to your desired firmness. 
13. tie the remaining tassels together. 

And there you have it! Felt heart-shape pillows that are both comfortable and cute. Peruse our blog for more activities for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

About Stephen’s Place

Stephen’s Place is an independent apartment community for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities, located in Vancouver, WA (7 minutes from Portland, OR).

If you have a loved one with developmental or intellectual disabilities who is looking for a community to live in, please contact us for more information. 

Stephen’s Place is a private-pay apartment community due to our state-of-the-art amenities and programs. We are a nonprofit and do not profit from our community. We are private pay because we spend more than some housing communities to ensure that our residents are comfortable and can safely live their lives with independence and dignity.