Last Minute Valentine's Dinner and Tree Tutorial

We hadn't planned on doing anything major for Valentine's Day.  The kids all had class parties and with O-man's third birthday less than a week away, I was fine with just that.  I had been a little disappointed when the girls requested dollar store cards to give their friends, we usually make them together.  That "free" time enabled me to make them each a new pink dress out of my t-shirt stash.  JuneBug's didn't get completely finished, we couldn't decide on how we wanted to finish it up, so she wanted to use one of my scarfs as a belt, she's forever adding her own touch.

In between their class parties, I ran over to Dollar Tree to get a few things I needed.  St. Patty's Day had pretty much already pushed St. Valentine out, but I noticed a few bags of rose petals and some pink and red plastic champagne flutes.  As Gru says in Despicable Me... Light Bulb!

Pasta was already on the menu for dinner, I'm not about to spend money on plastic disposable glasses, but I remembered I had a bottle of sparkling grape juice and the makings of Shirley Temples, why not jazz up a regular Monday night dinner a bit for Valentine's Day?

And the rose petals?  Well, for $2 and an episode of Mickey Mouse Club House, I had had a table scape!  I've seen quite a few "Valentine's Trees" around blog land and had intended on making my own but time escaped me (what else is new, right?!?!?).  At one time I felt the need to stock up on these cardboard tree sets that never got used.  So here is what I started with:

Starting at the bottom of my "tree tower..."

All right, Mom's turn O-Man.  Glue the petals around, working towards the top.

Let your assistant think he is helping. 

Make several, stick them in a cardboard box.  Head outside and appreciate the 40+ degree weather that was FINALLY melting the 6,000 inches of snow and spray them with glitter spray paint (just watch out for the high winds or let me know when we should wear our matching glittered jeans together)

Plop some chocolates into mini muffin wrappers and onto a couple pillar candle holders for a super easy table scape.

I let the girls make the pasta and sauce (aka pour into pot and stir).  They were thrilled to drink their pink and red drinks out of real wine glasses, we stuck with a plastic cup for O-Man.  I also added red food coloring to some cheddar garlic bread I made in the bread machine.  IronFish got a kick out of that.

I hope you enjoyed your Valentine's Day as much as we did!  I think eventually I will use the base of the tree kit, but this worked for now.  I've had a vision of a whole forest of trees as Christmas decor, since these are just red and white, they will definately work in my plan.  I have a whole file saved of tree ideas for next Christmas.

Peace be with you,

Paper Heart Flowers

Despite my intentions of actually using Valentine's decorations around the house this year (my girls love to decorate for the holidays), the wreath is the only thing that made it up.  Friday I went down and pulled out the container marked Valentine's Day, excited to finally be getting it out, I don't think I ever got it out last year.  Well, I sure was in for a surprise when I opened it...... it contained two hand towels, a roll of ribbon and some plastic hearts that must have broken off something else.  Surprisingly disappointing.

Good thing there are lots of fun Valentine's Day ideas floating around blog land.  One that stood out to me was a paper arrangement found here by Haley and her mom.  I really loved how Haley attached her paper flowers to sticks but there is a good 2 feet of snow preventing me from getting to a tree to steal it's branches, so I went with the skewers since I had them on hand. 

I also don't have a Cricut, but I do have scrapbook punches and slave labor children.  So I armed them with a stack of scrapbook paper, some stickers and glue sticks and set them free!  This ended up being a neighborhood project with several giggling girls at my dining room table.  When they were done I took the stack of "flowers" and hot glued them to long skewers.  I arranged them in a metal pail stuffed with newspaper.  The pointy end of the skewers made it easy to push them in to whatever height I liked best.  Here's the final result

Here's a close up

Some are a little funny looking, but they are bright and cheery, full of hearts and love, so I love them!  Now I get to clean up the living room so we can proudly display our Valentine's Day Bouquet... (ugg, this will probably take longer than it took to make the flowers...)
Peace be with you,

Rescuing a Broken Heart

Today I am happy to say I made it in and out of Michael's only getting exactly what I went in for!  This is an amazing feat for me.  While I was there, I did look at the clearance Christmas stuff and I couldn't help but notice the Valentine's Day stuff.  Which made me remember this heart wreath my girls fell in love with last year:

V-Day is one month away, but the rest of my house isn't quite in shape for decorating, but the only remaining Christmas decoration was the wreath on my front door.  I knew exactly where the heart wreath was, so I grabbed it, thinking I'd stick it on the door and hear squeals of delight when the girls got home.

Unfortunately, since this was made from China's expert craftsmanship much of the wreath is faded and parts look like this:

no longer attached to the wire frame

Finding it heard to just toss in the trash, I found this to be a great opportunity to do a little de-stashing of my ribbons (I LOVE ribbons!).  So I grabbed some ribbon scraps and my trusty tools

And got to work snipping the ribbons into about 6 inch lengths.  Once I had this

I singed both ends to prevent fraying

This is just for looks, back to that whole, not letting the 2 year old use the camera (or lighter for that matter) and I only have 2 hands)

Be careful not to leave the flame on the ribbon too long, it only takes a second near the flame for the ribbon to melt, too long and you end up with this

Oops, I only started a mini fire!

Then I started tying the ribbons on, using them to hold the no longer glued tinsel/garland stuff to the wire frame of the wreath.  Once I was pleased with the placement of the ribbons and felt there was enough, I flipped it over and tied a large silver ribbon to the back so the wreath would hang straight from my wreath holder

And hung it on my front door!

Here is a close up so you can see the ribbons in the tinsel stuff

And that is how you rescue a broken heart!

I think I will hear squeals of delight in about a half hour when the girls get home!