PJD How To - Making those little symbols

Those fun symbols that everyone posts on their blogs... Want to know how it is done?
I ♥ it!

& hearts ;

take away the spaces.. ♥

Also there are other symbols:

♠ = ♠
♣♣ = & clubs ; (no spaces)
♦♦ = & diams ; (no spaces)
←← = & lar r; (no spaces)
→→ = & rarr ; (no spaces)
↑↑ = & uarr ; (no spaces)
↓↓ = & darr ; (no spaces)