A sweet valentine mantel!

This fresh arrangement on my mantel features:
• vintage window frames of varying sizes and colors (from my old house!)
• a thrifted cardboard heart
• a printed piece of fabric (maybe a tablecloth?) from Grandma
• a valentine card from years past
• a sampling of my glass collection including milk glass
• a lovely heart garland I made a few years back

February bunting!

Bright red to get us through the gloomiest of months, snowflakes (let's be realistic, yes?), hearts for Valentine's Day, and stripes. This is the before-mentioned birthday gift for my mama!

sweet treats in a simple stitched bag

A friend treated me to this lovely little grown-up goody bag made of waxed paper, a zig-zag stitch, and a bit of love attached with a safety pin. So sweet!

happy hearts at home

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here are some photos of how we decorate using our homemade heart hangers, valentine cards, and a few simple red cardboard hearts. Plus, I left my old window up on the mantel from Christmas time and re-purposed that for a change.

happy heart quilt for me

I have a vision for a decorative quilt!

 It would hang over my mantel for the valentine season, bringing some color and cheer. A fuzzy bold read heart, loose and abstract and imperfect would rest in the center (there is a sweater in my give-away box that would be perfect!) and bands of pattern and color would radiate out from the center. And I think that the heart would be quilted on with scribbely, overlapping, many-hued colors of thread. Rough like a sketch. Mmmm... this could be a lot of fun!

my claim to (blog) fame!

I was honored to be included as a guest poster on The Artful Parent  which just happens to be one of my all-time favorite blogs. Jean is taking a bit of a sabbatical from her blog this month and asked if some of her readers would be willing to submit posts. How lovely of her to share her space.

Here's my post on our valentine cards – a current work in progress.

Spoiler alert: Grandmas and aunties might get a sneak peek of their future valentine mail if they check out this post!

How sweet!

I came across this recipe for sugar cookies, and, even more exciting, glaze! I've never seen a recipe for a glaze before and was really excited about how it looked. I have to admit I had a hard time with the dough – the consistency wasn't right – but that's probably due to user error. Besides, I am sure any sugar cookie recipe would suffice.

They used little squeeze bottles for the glaze. We had one but of course I had to have more than one color! The only similar thing we could find at the grocery store were really designed for ketchup and mustard but they worked just fine. When I first mixed up the glaze it was pretty stiff, like regular frosting. I added more milk to make it more liquid. And I definitely added a bit too much. Ah, well. We'll do better next time!

Depending on the age of your little ones, this activity could actually become three separate kitchen adventures. We made the dough on Saturday (it needs to chill at least one hour), did the rolling and baking Monday night (cookies need to cool before decorating), and then the decorating on Tuesday. My daughter especially loves the sprinkles!

Sharing the Love

Ok, so Valentine's Day was yesterday. That doesn't mean we can't still be enjoying festive heart decorations now does it? We need something cheerful to get us through this last painful month of winter! A few weekends ago I enjoyed some crafting with Christy (my "sew" talented mom-in-law). I had a vision for cute little plush hearts to hang from doorknobs and in windows.

I sent some down to my nieces and nephews. Some stayed at Christy's house. The rest my daughter found homes for all over the house. We plan to make more next year! It was a super fun afternoon and a great way to use up scrap fabric. 

I also wanted to make a garland to hang on my fireplace mantle and brought along some pre-measured green ribbon just in case we got that far. We debated on the colors of the hearts (all red? all pink? every other?) but the final scheme was suggested by my sister Michelle. I especially like the bright green with the red and the pink. Like flowers on a stem I think.

Valentine smiles!

I got crafty this year and hand-made valentines for Julia to send to grandparents, aunts & uncles, and great-grandparents, and other such important people. And of course I made an extra one for the scrapbook!

I am trying to be thrifty in my crafting so I used some fun bathtime photos that I had already printed with the intention of mailing. I still have some red number 10 envelopes left from our wedding invitations (I had to buy 500) so I based the size on that. The piece with the greeting is actually trimmed off the end of the full valentine. The cool transparent paper was a free sample from a paper vendor (hint: secure it with clear 2-sided tape so it doesn't show). And the cute little heart was made with a paper punch that migrated to my home when I moved out (sorry Mom!).

Speaking of Mom, she was my inspiration for this project. She did something similar with photos of the three of us girls during my childhood. One year, each of our faces were flowers. Another year, we were each a scoop on an ice cream cone. I can remember specific photo shoots just for these valentines. And, if my memory serves me correctly, we got to help assemble and use the very same heart paper punch!