Valentines Day- celebrate or not?

I know I'm a bit early but I was wondering....... do you celebrate Valentine's Day at your house?
The cards above are made using quilling papers. Do you remember quilling? I used to decorate wedding invitations with flowers and leaves made from the papers. These look even easier.

We don't do a lot for the day but we get each other nice cards and I usually make a special meal. My H likes steak so.........probably a nice filet with some twice baked potatoes, asparagus, or salad. For dessert, I often use my heart shaped cake pans or make creme brulee. I thought these cup cakes looked like an easy treat using red hots to spell out X's and O's.



Images from Martha Stewart Living.

My Valentines

Here is my attempt at the picture frame plates that I saw in my magazine the other day. You may remember this from my post the other day. I had some other pictures of niece's babies that I was gonna use but I didn't seem to have the right sizes. I found the plain white heart plates at TJ Maxx. I think the total of all three was about $10. I took my Bailey's picture and his doggie friend, Laddie, and cut them out to fit the plates and just taped them on with double-faced tape. I found some rub on transfers in my craft stuff and rubbed on the "Best Friends" and the hearts. I tried weaving the ribbon completely around the edge of the plate but it covered up a lot of the decorative edge.
I can always change them out to something else if I want a different look. This took no time and was super easy.

Oh, what a dish

I found this idea in one of my magazines. A decorative plate with a photo in the center. You just take a compass and make a circle the size of your plate's center, cut the picture to that size, and then attach the photo with double face tape. What a sweet grouping this would be for Valentines day or anytime. You could cut a red or pink round for the center and add a heart-shaped photo on top of that. I think I'll try this over the weekend.

Vintage gifts

I posted my little vintage tree the other day. My friends and I have great memories of our childhoods and we were talking the other day about some of the old candies and such. When I was a kid, we had a little neighborhood store that was on the way home from school and we would visit and buy penny candy like the juice wax milk bottles and pixie stiks.

So, I decided that this year for our neighbor gifts I would do a vintage theme. (Our neighbors are about our ages.) I started gathering old candies that we remembered along with some Teaberry gum. I found some black and white dvds of episodes of Andy Griffith, Lucy, and Jack Benny at Cracker Barrel. I bought some cigar type boxes at the dollar store. We had a lot of our treasures in those when we were kids. I assembled all the stuff in the boxes and added a vintage ornament. For gift tags, I used a couple of old pictures of us as kids. (Just what everybody wants, right?)

At any rate, it was fun doing and I hope our friends don't think I'm too crazy.

Bejeweled!

Mornin' all. Thought I'd share a little project that I did last year. I took my Mom's and MIL's old rhinestone jewelry and made a wreath. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep it this way, so I just T pinned the jewelry rather than remove the backs and hot glue it. If I had glued it, I could have used a lot of bits and pieces to fill in. I covered a straw wreath with ribbon and pinned them on. It takes quite a bit of jewelry. Ideally, I would love a two-toned look. Maybe with gold and red or silver and blue. I didn't have enough to do that so I just mixed it up.

A couple of gift ideas to make

Every year, I try to come up with new little Christmas gift ideas for my niece and nephew and the neighbors. The niece and nephew get some small gifts to open and I always try to give them some money in a unique way. These are some candy cups that I made last year that had money hidden in one of the wrappers. The candy is taped to wooden skewers and inserted into floral foam.

The neighbors got some peppermint bark, a Christmas candle, towel, and doggie treats. Gotta take care of the dogs. My Bailey the beagle loves to give Mom's homemade treats. His favorite.

I'm currently working on the neighbor's gifts. I'll post as soon as I'm done with them. Haven't done the kid's yet.

I'm thankful for..........

I've been thinking about what I'm grateful for at this Thanksgiving time. There are so many things, I could fill a book. I recently heard of an idea to make it fun on Thanksgiving day. You put out a basket of fall colored leaves cut from heavy construction paper. As your guests arrive, everyone takes a leaf and writes what they're thankful for. You then take a straw or styrofoam wreath ring that's been covered in fall ribbon and pin on the leaves. Hopefully the wreath will be complete by the end of the day. This would be a great thing for kids to do in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. (Focus on the good things in life as opposed to the bad)

I'll start my list now.

• I'm thankful for my husband of 28 years
• I'm thankful for our beautiful families
• I'm thankful for my beagle, Bailey
• I'm thankful that my car's paid off
• I'm thankful I live in the US
• I'm thankful for my internet friends

More tomorrow.......................

Save your sweaters

Hold on to those old Christmas sweaters that might be out of style or might not fit quite right anymore. Mine had both of those issues. LOL

This week, I took my old boiled wool sweater and cut it into a stocking. It was very easy to do. I just traced around one of my old stockings allowing for seams. The loop at the top is the band from the sleeve wrist.




I think I did a pretty good job. Doesn't look too different than Martha's below, does it? I'm not her biggest fan, but now and then I see some good ideas. I did mine before I saw this.
Martha Stewart has instructions on this stocking as well as pillows. I have made the pillows, in the past, but I don't have any examples to show you.

I've always wanted a chalkboard

I decided to try making a chalkboard for my kitchen. It was really easy.....taking only a quart of chalkboard paint to make the transformation. Of course, first I bought the spray on kind which resulted in a spotty appearance that I was not happy with. So, back to the store for a can of paint and some advice on how to get a better result. The trick is to lay it flat and roll it on rather than spray it.
I used an old wine print that had been in my kitchen way too long. For a chalk tray, I used a decorative molding that formerly had a grape thingie attached to the top. I just removed the grapevine and sprayed it black and then red.
OK, my handwriting is not the greatest, but I'm enjoying having a place to write my "whatevers" on the board.