Valentine's Day Decorating 2013

I had a couple of extra moments in between projects so I thought I would go ahead and decorate the house a little for Valentine's day. I mean, it had been back to normal now for a good three weeks! ;-) I ended up putting together a couple of projects this year to fill some space. I like the way that they turned out!

Now, I will be honest, sometimes I don't feel like decorating for every holiday or season. But I will tell you, when my kids and other family members mention how they love how it makes them feel to be in my house with the changing seasons/holidays, I kind of want to keep the tradition going!

 I had seen this idea on Pinterest, to add some decorative paper cut out hearts to skewers (which I just happened to have left over from another recent project,) and put them in a simple jar or vase. I just fiddled with hand drawing a heart in various sizes and cut them out then hot glued them on to the sticks. Simple as that.

This Valentine's day holiday is, shall we say... doesn't seem so lovely to me. I have been in a little bit of a funk. Life is stressful. Lots of bills to pay and not enough money to pay them. Isn't that the case with a lot of us?? But something inside of me doesn't want to disappoint.

So, off I went to scavenge as much stuff as possible from my arsenal to decorate my usual spots: the mantel, the baker's rack, and the mirror above my cookbook shelves. Best thing is that I did it without spending a dime. Just went "shopping" in my house and pulled stuff together.

I found another project to display that I had made a couple of years ago with my kids. All you do is cut a bunch of hearts out of red printed fabric and stuff them with polyfill and I taught my 3 youngest kids to whip stitch the edges closed. A great sewing skills project for them and a great way to use up scraps! Here is the original post from 2011. 

I also cut a heart shape out of red vinyl and added it to my decorative bowl that I display often. It just gave it a little color that I was looking for on my shelf. Next to the bowl is a couple of projects that I made last year that I just happened to find in my box of goodies. You can see my original post on them here.

I am really happy with the way it turned out and am especially happy about the cost. Hooray! I may be in love with the holiday once again. Maybe...