Valentine’s Day Crafts To Make With Your Serger

Ah, Valentine’s Day! The holiday where we express our love and devotion to those we care about through gifts of flowers, chocolates, and other presents. But this holiday doesn’t have to always mean buying gifts. Valentine’s Day is the perfect holiday for making crafts or gifts to share with your friends or loved ones instead of buying something. Handcrafted items are customizable to the taste of the gift recipient or your home’s decor and express love in a way store-bought things can’t.

The following 7 Valentine’s Day projects are all made using your serger and range in skill level and size from small scrap-busting crafts to larger, more time-consuming projects.

Small Pouch

These little pouches can be customized size-wise to use in gifting your sweetheart some chocolates or as wrapping for new jewelry or another well-meaning gift you’ve purchased. Create them using pretty satin or brocade to make a fancy pouch for your Valentine, or stick with a simple quilter’s cotton or even denim for the more practical people on your Valentine’s Day gift list.

Using a three or four thread overlock stitch, this super simple pouch takes less than five minutes to whip up and because of it’s style doesn’t need any buttons or zippers to fasten it closed! As an added bonus, instead of cutting your fabric squares, you can simplify the steps even further by using 5-inch charm pack squares.

Fabric Envelope

If you made a handcrafted card for your sweetheart or bought them a gift certificate for some pampering at the spa, this fabric envelope puts the perfect finishing touch on your present! This project is a little more time consuming than the small pouch, but still super fast from start to finish.

These adorable fabric envelopes are quick to make and can be sewn so the inside and outside matches, or use different fabrics for some contrast. Adjust the size easily based upon the size of the card by adding to the length and/or width of the pattern pieces. After sewing the envelope, handstich some pom poms or buttons on the outside and fasten the envelope closed with some bakers twine or crochet thread.

Heart-Shaped Pillow

With this sweet heart-shaped pillow, you can give someone your heart! Well, not your heart specifically but a heart-shaped pillow. The heart-shaped pillow is a great project to work on for friends and family who live far away and aren’t seen as often as you’d like. Any time they see their gift, they are reminded of you and how much you care.

If you want to add a little extra customization to the project, embroider the person’s name onto the pillow — either by hand or machine — or add a sweet phrase professing your love. Remember to do the embroidery before you cut out pattern pieces to make constructing the pillow easier.

Placemat

Decorate your Valentine’s themed breakfast or dinner table with these customized placemats. From start to finish, create one of these beautiful modern placemats in under twenty minutes.

This project pieces together strips of fabric — with the overlock stitch used as a decorative accent — making it a great scrap busting project. You can incorporate quilting cottons along with heavier fabrics such as wool or denim to add texture to the finished placement. Fusible stabilizer is sandwiched between the top and bottom layers, giving the placemat some stiffness, and it’s finished off with an overlock stitch as well. No need to sew on a binding to enclose the unfinished edges of the placemat.

Heart-Shaped Dress

Using a knit dress you already have on hand, this easy to follow tutorial shows you how to sew a heart-shaped dress without buying a new pattern. There’s no need to brave the department store and the fitting room, when you can sew a unique new dress for you or your little girl(s) to wear to your holiday dinner. Customize it for Valentine’s Day by selecting a knit fabric in an adorable heart or floral print in pretty pink or red shades.

Your serger is an excellent tool for sewing knits dresses. An overlocker quickly finishing seams, and creates hems without stretching the fabric as your standard sewing machine may do.

Adult Sized Fully-Reversible Heart Apron

If you have plans to cook a delicious Valentine’s Day dinner at home, this fully-reversible heart apron is a must-do project! Keep your outfit clean and add a little extra holiday cheer to the day with this quick project.

With this apron being fully-reversible, you can choose to make both sides in cute Valentine’s Day fabrics, or you can make one side “sweet” and the other side in an everyday fabric. This lets you wear the apron year-round, getting as much use out of it as possible. Instead of satin ribbon you could use twill tape, bias binding, or make your own apron ties from fabric.

Fabric Flowers

This year, instead of spending money on live flowers that only last a few days or a week, try your hands at making beautiful flowers instead! This project uses satin or grosgrain ribbon, or strips of fabric (cotton, taffeta, satin, etc.) to create the flower “blooms” that will never wilt or droop.

Using an elastic or beading foot on your serger, you add thin wire to the ribbon or fabric edge under a rolled hem. Once the wire is sewn on, ruffle or gather the fabric along the wire, and then “roll” the strip into a flower shape, using the wire to hold it into place. After the flowers are created, you can sew them onto other projects or attach them to dowel rods or pipe cleaners to create a bouquet complete with stems.

More Serger Projects

About Amanda S.: Growing up, I was fascinated by watching my mom and grandma turn fabric into beautiful handcrafted items. In my early 20’s, I finally got brave, buying a sewing machine and teaching myself to sew. As I fell in love with sewing, my machine collection expanded, and I ran an Etsy shop sewing children’s clothing for a few years. As a single mom of 3 great kids, my sewing time has lessened, but I still try to find time to work on quilts, bags, and projects with my kids, teaching them what I love.