I started....I just couldn't wait! Valentine's Day!

I was REALLY trying to wait until February 1st to start decorating for Valentine's Day, but I couldn't wait.   I think because I've spent the last week entirely in my kitchen re-organizing (except to load the washer, drive kids to school and activities and sleep of course), I got sick of my winter decor.  And...because we finally got some snow, somehow it seemed okay to move on from my winter decor...don't ask, I can't explain my reasoning.

This year I decide to make a few new things from ideas I found on none other than pinterest.  What would I do without it?  Actually I saw last week on the Today Show that it's now one of the top 4 search engines...could it be?  Love it!

Anyway, as usual, I digress.   I did all of my decorating in an hour.  Seriously.  So easy to make these 2 projects and add a few things i had around.   Here is what my mantle looks like.

I made the wreath and the garland and printed the Valentine's Day subway art.  So super easy.  I used the same candlesticks from my winter mantle and added a mirror I had that I never have an exact home for.   Other than that...super easy!

You can print the subway art and a few other here.  Thanks for sharing!

My inspiration for the wreath was from these few beauties I found...

I loved this one from 'Eighteen25' (in fact I love all things on their blog), but it was

just too much work for me this year.  I'm supposed to focus on re-organizing and re-stocking the shop.  So visit back...a shameless plug :)

Or this one from 'Black White Side by Side'.  So pretty, but again not enough time to make it, but she does provide the step by step instructions if you can find the time!

And I adore these candy wreaths, but to be totally honest, I'm afraid they'll shed and create a mess.   Type A...sorry

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So...I went to my local Dollar Store and found a round styro wreath and a few stems of fake roses.  I took the ones that were the fullest and just guestimated how many.  

First step....pop the heads off the roses....

Second, get out the hot glue gun (love that thing)....attach the ric rac ribbon leftover from Christmas.  I didn't take a picture of this step, but here you can see where it is attached.  You want to do this first so you can hide it among the roses.

Next....start attaching the roses with your glue gun.  A little glue plus the part of the rose that sticks right into the stryro and voila...

I filled the front and sides and that hid the styro.  I did not do the back so that it would lie flush against a door, wall or mirror.  Here is what the back looks like...

I had it on the front door originally, but decided I needed to look at it more so now it is on the mantle.

So SUPER SIMPLE!  

The garland I made was also super simple. Here was some of my inspiration...

I love this garland from 'Love the Day', but I wanted it to hang across my mantle.  

And I loved these two as well...

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So I combined all of the ideas and used felt and sewed them together on my machine.  After that I decided to hot glue some left over Christmas ribbon to add some stability to it for the mantle.

So step 1 was to choose your felt and start cutting.   I used the 9x11 sheets ($. 59 at Joann's) and cut each into 6 equal pieces.

I only used 3 colors and had  total of 18 hearts to work with.  

(Sorry for the terrible photo quality. I took them at night and had horrible glare from my pendant lights)

Next I hit the machine.  It's really easy.  You want to set your tension tighter than you'd use on fabric and you just start feeding the hearts through one by one.  You can leave some space in between, but I chose not to.

And then I glued my ribbon and voila!

Again, really easy.  I had some leftover felt so I decide to make these and hang them from my "tree" on my kitchen island.

My last Valentine's addition was some fresh flowers. I adore flowers and get some almost every week when I grocery shop.  When they are only $4, I feel like it's a very cheap treat for doing such a painful job of shopping :)

I took this inspiration...from Ms. Stewart of course.

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I didn't want the candy around so I went with some Dollar store sparkly hearts from last year and added some ribbon.  Easy trick...use glue dots to make the ribbon stick to your glass...and it's super easy to remove!

We have a few other Valentine's crafts we are working on as well as our homemade Valentine's.  I do love the ease of the store-bought and have used them in years past, but I love the time we spend together making them too.  It reminds me of being little and personalizing each one for my classmates.

I have TONS of ideas to share and will hold off until next week on those.  Back to organizing.  Stay tuned for the next area of organization this weekend...the linen closet/bathroom closet.  

Poshed Up