Valentine Tablescape

Nothing too fancy this year! It's our first Valentine's Day with a baby, and things have been crazy in the fam lately (my brother and his fam moving here and company in town), so we planned to stay home to celebrate. Plus, Daddy is usually too worn out in the week from work to do much at night!

I cooked Alfredo Pasta, one of the hubbies favorites and added a side of his favorite bread and peas (since Baby Girl can eat those-blended-now!). Nothing fancy at all because I knew I would be interrupted all day long with the baby, cleaning house, and errands! It didn't all get done! Piles of laundry still await me and just may wait until tomorrow!

I wanted to fancy it up just a *little* and at least make the table look festive! The dining room has already been looking a little Valentiney for the past couple weeks!

See how I decorated it in my last post here.

These photos are from my iPhone. Honestly, they look lots better than the ones from my camera since this is a hard spot to photo and the flash on the camera looks so harsh!

Just a few pieces of wedding china, some pasta bowls from Target's dollar spot from back when EVERYTHING was always $1!

And some champagne with a cherry dropped in and a little of the grenadine added to make it festive looking!

The hearts in the bowls are from Target's current $ spot, and they kind of looked like marshmallows once I put them in there! I tried to convince the hubby that's what they were and pretended to take a bite to fake him out so he would try- yeah, it didn't work! He just looked at me like a weirdo! :)

We were interrupted at least 10 times by Baby Girl! She just wasn't happy anywhere we put her- swing, jumper, highchair, floor- nothing worked! She may have a little cold, and isn't herself poor thing! She napped while I was cooking, and an hour after dinner she was out for good! Guess we should've planned a later dinner!

Off to have myself another glass of the yummy champagne and then go to bed! The laundry can wait until tomorrow! :)

Valentine Decor

Here is all of my Valentine decor put together!

You can see how I made certain elements here:

Shabby Heart Wreath
Dollar Tree Rose Make-over
Valentine Framed Art

My dining room gets the least light in the house, so it's really hard to photgraph well! There are no nearby windows to let light in!

Along with the three projects I made above, I also incorporated aqua glass items from Goodwill, milk glass vases I've had for a long time, flowers from the flower girl buckets at my wedding, starfish tied with pale pink ribbon to champagne glasses, and one of my favorite espresso cups (expect to see more of those soon in my "spring" decor!).

As you can tell, I also kept around some of my winter decor! It is still winter after all! In fact just a couple days ago, Nashville had it's worst snow of all winter, and we've had more than our share already! People were stuck in snow/ice traffic jams for up to 5 hours just to make 30 minute or less commutes!

And this little monkey was bouncing and watching me while I was taking pictures, so I just had to share a snapshot of her! My bedroom door is right in the dining room, so she hangs out there jumping a lot since I can see her from the kitchen, dining room, and my bedroom right there! LOVE HER!! :)

Next is my Valentine dinner tablescape and Valentine's is OVER!

Linking up here:

Valentine Framed Art

One last Valentine project to share, then I'll reveal it all put together!

Although I didn't think I was going to do any Valentine decorating, I'm really glad I did, and love how it all came together!

I wanted to make some cute love sayings to frame, and knew what I wanted to say, but wasn't sure how I was going to do it! I also have no idea what to actually call this project- so I'm calling it my "Framed Art!"

I started off by using my Silhouette to cut out "Love is deeper than the ocean" and "Love is wider than the sea" using vinyl. Had to make them a beachy theme to get them to fit in my decor!

I thought about just putting it on black cardstock, putting it in a frame and calling it a day but got more creative!

I had two pretty silver frames that were wedding gifts I've never used! I took the insert and ripped pieces of coordinating scrapbook paper too cover it!

I glued on the paper with a glue stick, then trimmed the edges

I almost left it at that, but decided to dirty it up a bit by rubbing some watered down black paint. Black stain would be a lot better- but I used what I had! I do have brown stain but didn't want that look for this project!

I made a mess, as you can tell! I used a wet paper towel and just went nuts dipping back and forth between the paint and a cup of water wiping off a lot of excess. My fingers were a disaster!

Then I modge-podged the whole thing.

I took my vinyl letters from the Silhouette and started to pull off the excess- noticed it made a better stencil and the letters left behind were slipping all over (although I adore the Silhouette, I think the cricut vinyl actually works better, and you can buy it in craft stores! Sorry, Silhouette! I still want you over the cricut itself anyday!)

So I used the vinyl as a stencil instead, and stuck it on the modge-podged paper to paint! I really think this helped create more of the look I was going for- messy, instead of clean and crisp! And I still have the letters (although several are askew!) in case I want to use them for another project!

I simply used white wall paint since it's what I had on hand to stencil on the letters, and I removed the stencils almost immediately!

Because I had modge-podged FIRST, the vinyl peeled right off! I think it would have stuck if I hadn't created that slick barrier first! I wiped up any mistakes quickly- with my fingernail, but you'd probably be smarter to use a q-tip or small brush! And I corrected a few parts I'd messed up- like you can see on the top one I messed up the L- that was actually before I decided to use it as a stencil so I wasn't careful!

I modge-podged again to seal the paint.

Put it in the frames- minus the glass to keep it from being shiny, and there you go! FREE Valentine art! The letters were the hardest part, and it wasn't that hard! Got it all done during Baby Girl's nap!

Here's where they found their home on my hutch (ignore the leftover Christmas candy which will be replaced by Valentine candy or maybe some more wishing rocks!)

Soon you'll see how they fit in the rest of my Valentine decor!

Shabby Heart Wreath

**If you read this earlier, I updated a little bit adding some pink ribbon and cutting off one of the ends of the blue- just wasn't workin for me, but now it is!**

I wasn't planning to make a Valentine Wreath. I did sorta look around for a cheap heart wreath frame when I've been shopping lately, but never came across anyting I wanted to spend my $$ on!

Then while I was working on my Dollar Tree Rose Makeover last night, I was thinking about a wreath and thought- "What if I could make one with a wire hanger, and just cover it with material or something?"

I'm all about using what I have on hand lately! We're working on paying off a mountain of debt, so gotta save those pennies!!

So, I grabbed a wire hanger and a torn up old white sheet that I've already used other parts of for lots of other projects and went to work.

This is what I came up with!

It's on my dining room wall, which you've seen before! I just removed the pic in the middle! Not showing yet what is on the shelf and buffet underneath- still workin on it, but it will include my Dollar Tree Rose Makeover!

(This was before I added the pink
and realized how annoying that long blue ribbon on the right is!)

I made a rosette with some jute twine and hot glue, added some ribbons leftover from wedding projects (yeah, I use a lot of stuff from my wedding to decorate still!), and put a white pearl pin through it to secure it to the fabric.

Ummm, ignore that lil hole that the picture frame I removed usually covers and just look at my pretty twine rosette! You can also see I didn't bother to unwrinkle where the ribbon was once tied around something- I rather like wrinkles!

I'm glad I added in the pink! I made it to be pretty rough and random- there was no pattern to how I wrapped the fabric around it except for making sure some of the raw edges and unravelling strings would show! I like the look it gives, plus it matches my table runner!

Linked up at:

Pink & Polkadot

Tatertots & Jello

Dollar Tree Roses

I'm working on an aqua, light pink and white Valentine's vignette. I don't normally decorate for Valentine's Day, and I wasn't planning to this year. But reading blogs....I got the bug!

Here's what I'm currently working on (and have the hot glue bits stuck to my fingernails to prove it!)

I'm making over these blah Dollar Tree Roses. Here's the white ones I've yet to re-do.

The flower itself is really pretty, but the leaves are just iiiiickkkk! Trust me, they look worse in person than in this photo. Plus they are tissue papery, and they were so awful, I almost walked right by them. Then, I tugged at one and realized it could come off and one pink and one white bouquet hopped into my cart!

The petals are kind of foamy and lightweight and have shiny glitter on them- not realistic, but pretty!

Here's the pink bouquet made over:

I used my Silhouette to make the leaves (with a leaf shape included already!) out of cardstock, small ones for around the rose and bigger ones for the leaves on the stems. The leaves I took off did leave some nasty bright green spots around the roses I had to cover up, plus the flowers now looked nekkid!

Then I wrapped some jute twine around the stems to add some texture!

I simply used hot glue to keep it all in place! They're a bit messy, but only I can tell!

Again, not realistic looking, but that's not what I was going for! Plus I can use these for years to come!

Cost- $2! I had all the supplies on hand except the actual roses! Glad I got the pink ones when I did, because I couldn't find any pink the next time I went!

Off to go rip the nasty leaves and re-do the white ones!

Hopefully in the next day or two I'll have my Valentine's vignette fixed up so you can see how I use these pretty babies!