My Valentine's Day, in Pictures

Found these at Aldi for $5!  Who says you can't give a MAN flowers, too?

Attempted drying strawberry hearts on Valentine's EVE...at least the parchment paper turned out cute! :)

Woke up in the morning to find THIS!

It's a BEAST.  :)  Filled with snippets of our first date, a two-week-long private Facebook event ('cause we'd started dating during finals week and couldn't find time to see each other).

Also, this. Hilariously scandalous name, but OH-SO-COMFY.  I have worn them every day since!

This is what I got for him--found a seller on Etsy who made them.  Yes, those ARE Pride and Prejudice Cufflinks!

A surprise visit by my student and her mom--they brought me flowers, chocolates, and a sweet card she wrote herself!

Proof that the iris DID bloom that night.  :)

The days after holidays are my favorites, because everything is ON SALE!  These adorable stuffed animals were $2.50/piece at Aldi.  Perfect.

Love my hot booties!  ;)  I'm wearing them even as we speak. 

Not pictured: fancy schmancy dinner out (O'Charley's) and getting to sleep early!  Woohoo!

4-sided (4-season) decor!

I finally got around to making my 4-season stackables!  I loved this idea from the moment I saw it because (a) I like cute, handmade things, and (b) I live in an apartment so I don't have the space to store a lot of cute things.  :)  I haven't put any vinyl lettering (I'm gonna go with white eventually) on them yet, because I'm indecisive about fonts and words and such right now, but they look pretty awesome as-is.  So maybe they won't get any vinyl at ALL 'til next year?  :)

Anywho, I found a few variations of this idea via Pinterest (check out HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE)...because some of those links give tutorials or even an option to buy for various holidays, I won't go into TOO much detail here.  But there is a general idea/to-do list below the pictures if you're interested in the short version.  :)

Basically I bought some wood--I went with 4x4s from Home Depot (get the cheap wood, it's not for building--I got an 8 foot length cut down for about $9 total!  I loved that they would cut them for me, although I know most people get much thinner wood...also, I liked that I could make them HUGE and the 12x12 paper I bought would cover 3 sets...great for Christmas presents!  Cut your wood (whatever sizes you want, I used 6", 8", and 10" blocks) and sand all edges down as smoothly as you like.  

Paint or stain the blocks in the color of your choosing.  

Purchase and cut to size 3 scrapbook papers (I really recommend 12"x12", you can always use the leftover scraps for future art/decor that matches) for EACH holiday you pick.  I liked the white trim around the blocks to make it more uniform so I cut the paper 1/2" shorter than the length of each wood piece.  I chose Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's Day papers, although if you want to do other holidays--St. Pat's, Easter, 4th of July, back-to-school time even--go for it!  :)  

Mod Podge your papers on, under AND over the paper, one side at a time with at least 2 hours of drying time between each side.  TIP: Unless you're going to also seal it with some sort of sealer, I HIGHLY recommend storing/stacking these with a thin sheet of wax paper between each block.  At least for the first year of use.  Mod Podge can be temperamental, especially if you store it in a box in the garage/shed with weather changes, and you don't want to have to pry them apart and possibly tear your paper!  

Finally, if you so desire, add vinyl lettering to each side.  Enjoy!

Paul's 28th Birthday Week!

It was more low-key than I'd have liked some days, but here goes anyway.  :)

Saturday (Day 1): A medicine dispenser filled with candy and a little love note to open each day of his birthday week.  The note also included a little clue or note about that day's gift/activity.

Sunday (Day 2): Found these goofy but AWESOME bottle opener sunglasses on sale.  The note said something about how our love was so bright and he was my sunshine, all that jazz.  :) 

Monday (Day 3): Balloon Truth-or-Dare for FHE. 

Tuesday (Day 4): 28 kisses (with 28 reasons I love him on the back of them) in an envelope.  See below for "instructions."

First, pucker up and put on the brightest red lipstick you can find.

Kiss that paper as many times as you desire.  I liked it when I did 2 kisses per lipstick application, because it gave a more varied color.  I got SO INSPIRED as I was doing this for some awesome Valentines art/project ideas!

On the back of each kiss, write something you love about them!

Cut them out.  And, if you are crazy like me, laminate.  Not only are they sturdier BUT they keep the lipstick from smearing everywhere afterwards...which is always good. 

Wednesday (Day 5): Nerf gun fight!  (Note to self, wet shoes on a wet tile floor=NOT a good fighting ground.)

Thursday (Day 6 and actual birthday!): sock bouquet.  Tutorial HERE.  I modified it a little by using army men as vase filler and it was a BIG HIT.  Boys.  :)

My fabulous dinner at Bistro 501.

Paul's duck.

When we came home and I showed him the sock bouquet, he immediately set to building a fort and creating a whole battle scene.  :)

I went to the bathroom, and when I came out this is how I found him.  :)

 (I'll have a separate post just about this...it was SO FUN!)

Of course, then we got out the nerf dart guns and cut down each other's forces.  :)

Our awesome friends and old neighbors made Paul birthday cupcakes, so he didn't go without cake after all.  Thanks, Walkers!  And he ate some late-night ramen, so he got his long noodles in, too.  :)

Day 7 and final: We were going to have our family pics taken at a nearby park.  It rained all day.  Had to postpone.  Which was okay because we still will have them done SOMETIME and we got to go to our ward's chili cookoff and get fed for practically free.  But we ate too much, and we were both so tired and sore that we ended up skipping the other thing we were going to do (local improv comedy hour).  BUT, that's okay, too, because we can catch them after the New Year for a lot cheaper in their new location, and now we have money to hit up a corn maze/pumpkin patch sometime after I come home from Utah.  :)  SO.  Not how I planned it, but still an okay night.  What did we do instead?

Cuddling with puppies...even if they are too big to be lap dogs, they don't notice.  :)

Called up Paul's folks...

...worked on our target practice...

...and went to bed before 10.  Well, *I* did, anyway. :) Pretty good end to another birthday week.  I sure do love you, Paul!  Thanks for being a great husband, and happy 28th!

Valentine's Day Decor!

Valentine's decor.  A little late, I know.  Sorry.  But better late than never, right?  :)

So, I love the cutesy stuff that's associated with VDay, but without kids around I kinda wanted to have a more crafty, grown-up, classy look on the mantle rather than stuff that looks like kids made it (or stuff I bought at the dollar tree...which I did...shhh...).  It was challenging.  I haven't quite achieved the look I want, but it'll have to do for this year.  :)  AND it cost me under $25.  Not too shabby.

I went with a pink/red/white/gray color scheme--the gray really classes it up a little, in my opinion.  But what do you think? (Ignore the ugly mantle...we rent, so we can't paint it the colors we want!)

Let's take a look at some of the pieces up-close.  :)

First of all, my argyle wreath.

This was a Pinterest find that really sort of inspired everything else.  (You can find the original link, including the tutorial, from Mine for the Making HERE).  My BFF *LOVES* argyle, so it makes me think of her and how much I *love* her, and I thought the hearts instead of diamonds were an extra-special touch.  It was really cheap (felt and yarn from my stash, so just had to buy the wreath itself) and pretty easy, just a little time-consuming because I have the cheap, thin gray yarn and had to spend more than 3 hours wrapping it.  Still, it was worth it!  I placed it strategically over the "family" word art/picture frame this same BFF made me a year ago for a gift, and paired it with little piggy banks from the Dollar Tree (we have a thing for these) and some champagne flutes filled with Dollar Tree necklaces and foam hearts.  This part cost me about $8 altogether.

In the middle, I had seen some fun word art things on Pinterest and online that inspired me to get a little creative.  I used my engagement ring, some scrapbook paper, and Scrabble letters for this photo:

Printed it off in an hour, framed it in a cheap gray frame, and paired it with a cute Valentine's teddy bear Paul had given me on our first Valentine's Day together.  ;)  Made a matching frame with some (kindergarten-inspired) penguin heart art to go on the other side.  (Penguin heART?  :)  Anywho, frames, pictures, paints, and all, this part cost me $4.50.

See?  I'm already becoming more kiddish by the moment.  :)

ANYWHO.  I had made this "I Love You" hand art for another gift for Paul a while ago--it's hanging in our bedroom usually, but I brought it out and paired it with an *adorable* little rose teapot I found at GoodWill (and scored for $1).  So this was another buck to add to the tally.

Finally, I was inspired by Craftily Ever After's post (HERE) and tried my hand at my own cute felt rosette balls.  The challenge?  I couldn't find ANYTHING that looked like those amazing candle holders (or whatever they are), especially not in my price range.  Imagine the MIRACULOUS moment when I discovered these two beauties at GoodWill, at 50% off, no less:

Yeah, they're completely different materials and weights and were in two different aisles of the store...but they were meant to be together!  Right down to the swirly stems and pointed feet.  Total of $2.50 for both.  Some white paint sponged on (so they have the same color and texture now) and some hours of cutting and hot-gluing felt to styrofoam balls, and we have this for about $5!

It really was plenty, but I am a crazy person and hate the white-on-white.  So I took a canvas ($3/pc at Walmart) and covered it with some $1.50/yd fabric and some ribbons from my stash:

Now I have something in my color scheme to put behind them to really make them pop!  And this can stand alone if I choose to rearrange things next year.  Bonus!

$23 total.  I win.  :)

Just to the right of our mantle is our huge window/sliding door.  I made these heart-pillow-ornaments for the blinds a few years ago (one of my few semi-original ideas)...and I still love them.  So we used them again.

And this is the centerpiece for our table this year.  I found the candle holder at GoodWill for $1, and got the candles from Dollar Tree.  Everything else is from our stash from previous years, etc.  I don't love it, but it worked for now.

And that's it!  :)  Hope your Valentine's Day was amazing and filled with love.  Mine was pretty great...we were in Boston (more on that soon!), so I didn't get to do all the cute cooking-related activities and such I'd been planning on, but it was still fun...and there's always next year.  ;)  Or anniversaries.  Or just-because romance.