I ♥ Valentine's Day

The kids and I have been busy getting ready for Valentine's Day tomorrow. Last week they made some valentines:

  

And Saturday I finally sat down with the pile of felt I bought over a month ago to make some heart decorations:

I had two sheets each of red, hot pink, light pink, ivory and dark brown, and just kept cutting and cutting until all the felt was gone. I think this was around 150 hearts of various sizes. Luckily I am fairly proficient at cutting heart shapes--if it had been anything else this project would have been doomed. Seriously.

So then I had to do something with all of them...

 

I had this old wreath I'd made with cupcake liners, but never really liked it (plus I'd made a second one that was better), so I had no qualms about ripping that all off to get back to the wreath form.

Then I hot glued away. Madelyn helped me choose which hearts to put on. I tried to only put glue on one half of each heart so that they weren't completely plastered down. This 12 inch wreath took about 50 hearts to cover.

 

Voila!

 

Is there anything better or more cheery than red and pink hearts??! No. No there is not.

 

Little Miss Cheerleader got to put the wreath on her bedroom door.

I still had a lot of hearts left over.

 

Cue Bluebell, my trusty Kenmore Mini Ultra sewing machine I've had for 8-9 years. The day before, Madelyn was watching something on the laptop stationed behind it, and kept scooting it farther and farther onto the table (without realizing it) and finally pushed my sewing machine right off the edge. There was a huge CRASH and I'm quite certain Bluebell's whole life flashed before her eyes. I nearly had a heart attack.

The top thread guide got bent and there was a dent and scuff here and there, but miraculously she still works. I looked inside and couldn't see anything wrong and oiled it, but now the motor is very stiff and lethargic. AND it chipped the floor where it fell. Siiiiighhh. Such a tragedy!

Anyway, I managed to squeeze out some garlands made from sewing the hearts together, sort of like the dot garlands I made last year. You just feed the hearts through one after the other until you have the length you want. Leave the strings long on either end to have something to hang them with.

It was fun to do different color combinations. Madelyn does not think that brown should be a Valentine color.

 

I kind of like this brown and ivory one, though. Looks good with my aqua wall.

So the living room and Luke's room were decked out, and Madelyn (even though she got the heart wreath for her room) was like, "What about meeeeee??"

I had extra red felt left, so I went ahead and made another garland while watching Downton Abbey last night. Did any of you see it??????? Gah! I am on pins and needles to find out what happens for the Season 2 finale next week!

 

So now Madelyn has hearts on her door, hearts on her window, and streamers on her ceiling from her birthday 6 weeks ago.

It's all so girly and cute and happy looking that it might just stay up year round.

Happy Valentine's Day! ♥