Valentine's Day decor, part two

Hey all, and happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend. Mine ended on a sad note because a certain team couldn't manage to win a certain game...but let's not talk about it! :)

On Friday I showed you my Valentine's Day vignette on the floating shelves in the living room.

I also gave our gallery wall in our kitchen a little V-day love. I think my favorite part about a gallery wall is that you can change it on a whim and give it a new look in just a few minutes.

The hubs walked by afterward and slowed down to look at it. "This thing is always like a surprise to me," he said. Love it! :)

To bring some love to this wall, I added wedding photos of our parents and this one of my great-grandparents. I love it next to the black-and-white photo of us.

My in-laws. And I added a photo of the Eiffel Tower, because what's more romantic than Paris?

My parents on the left and a photo of us from our engagement shoot, each matted with some cardstock.

I also added these love quotations that I printed out for our wedding, but never used. Of course I kept them just in case I'd want to use them for something else...and look, I did!

I framed some of those cutie crocheted hearts I showed you last week on some cardstock.

This big puffy LOVE is from Target last year. You might recognize it from last year's vignette on the floating shelves. I love reusing items, especially holiday-themed ones, so I don't have to keep buying decor items that only get put out for a couple weeks out of the year.

What's this, another LOVE sign? Yep! I made it using a piece of oak, some stain, painters' tape and white paint. I'll show you more on it later. I still gotta paint that edge white, but I was too excited about it not to get it up and show you.

A couple more photos!

Valentine's Day decor, part one

Woohoo, it's Friday! I'm pumped for this weekend -- got a couple projects I hope to finish up, and I can't wait to watch the Patriots beat the Giants in the Super Bowl...go Pats!

My floating shelves are a faux mantel where I like to feature seasonal or holiday decor, so of course I had to pink it out for Valentine's Day.

I did this while the hubs was occupied with something else, and though I doubt it's really his cup of tea, he was very sweet and said he liked my "pink poufy things."

Me: "It looks pretty girly up there right now, doesn't it?"
Hubs: "Uh, yes, yes it does."

He's so nice to put up with me!

This display started with some inspiration from Martha Stewart Living.

I have a ton of paper flowers I made for our wedding (and never used!) plus some I made for a friend's bridal shower. And like the pack rat I am, I've held onto them, thinking they'd come in handy...I love being right :)

To arrange them in a heart shape, I used the top of a Kohl's shirt box and cut out a cardboard heart, drawing an outline in pen before cutting, and folding it in half to make sure it was symmetrical.

My paper flowers were all held together with floral wire. I poked holes in the cardboard heart with a pen tip and threaded the wire through, holding it in place with a piece of tape.

It's not quite as fluffy as I would have liked, but it's very sweet and romantic, don't you think? I like how it looks with my old, flea-market frame.

The pink paper flowers are hanging from white ribbon just stuck to the ceiling with Scotch tape...fancy, huh?

The vases I bought last year from Target, and the aqua insulator is from the flea market, which I included after seeing Myra at My Blessed Life's lovely Valentine's mantle.

These cutie birds were our wedding cake toppers. Aww!

I've been using these white branches a lot -- in my fall decor:

Christmas decor:

And now Valentine's decor. They're holding these little crocheted hearts I made, which are super easy to make if you're a crocheter! The pattern is here.

Aren't they super adorable?! I made a bazillion for no reason :)

And the whole shebang is finished off with some white feathers I bought at Christmastime to make a cute little feather tree, buuut....that never happened. At least they're getting some use now!

My favorite part of this little display? I bought nothing except the dark pink yarn, which was $1 at the Dollar Tree.

I'll be back next week with some more Valentine's Day decor -- hint, hint, it's changes to my gallery wall!

Linking up!

A day for love and chocolate

Happy Valentine's Day!

Portland's historic downtown is once plastered with paper hearts, the work of the mysterious Valentine's Bandit (read more here). I'm feeling the love!

I like flowers and all (okay, I love flowers), but I still think something chocolate is the best Valentine's present. What can I say -- I'm a sucker for the sweet stuff.

This was my first time making whoopie pies, and I was pretty happy with the results by the end (let's just say the first couple pans were not as good...). The recipe comes from Moody's Diner, a coastal Maine diner known for its traditional pies as well as its whoopies.

I won't give you a whoopie play-by-play because, well, frankly I'm not very good at cooking. I will tell you that you'll need a REAAALLY big bowl and a strong mixing arm for all this dough (I may or may not have gotten chocolate all over myself). For the filling, I used a cup of shortening and a half-cup of butter, mostly because I ran out of shortening, and I thought it was divine (as much as I love chocolate, I think the filling is my favorite part!). And I gave them a little Valentine's bling.

Hope your day is filled with love -- and chocolate!

Valentine's vignette

I don't think I've ever decorated for Valentine's Day -- not because of any prejudice against the holiday, but I was just never inspired (I guess I was too busy eating those little candy hearts!). Well, that changed when I saw the adorable Valentine's-inspired decorations at Thifty Decor Chick, House of Smiths and Decorchick! I spotted those cute vases at Target that Emily at Decorchick! used on her mantle, and, well, they just jumped into my basket! And the rest just developed from there.

I don't have a mantle, but two floating shelves that since Christmas have been a little ignored. I had so much fun turning them from a forgotten feature into a romance-themed vignette.

Ta-da!

On the smaller shelf, those aforementioned vases from the Target dollar spot, a steal at $2.50. I tore apart a Christmas pick and stuck the pieces into the vases. Behind the vases, a glittery, puffy LOVE, also at the Target dollar spot for $1 (I love that dollar spot!). I glued it onto pretty scrapbooking paper that I taped to a floating frame backing. 

On the top shelf,  I put a lovey-dovey picture of the hubs in a love-and-hearts frame I already had, and wrapped a square glass votive holder in leftover Christmas ribbon. 

On the other end of the shelf, I printed out a sweet quote about love and glued it to some more scrapbooking paper, and decorated it with ribbon and pink metallic stickers. 

I saved my favorite part for last -- a tissue-paper flower topiary. 

I made a bunch of tissue paper flowers for our wedding last summer that we never even used, but since I'm a pack rat, I held onto them -- and I'm glad I did, since I already used a couple on a Christmas tinsel wreath I made. (Get Martha's paper flower directions here). 

It took a bit of finagling, but I managed to get six of those flowers into a mostly round ball, then I held them all together with some floral wire and hot glue. For the stem, I glued together four wooden skewers and wrapped them in white ribbon. I filled the vase with river rocks to get it to stand up straight.

Isn't it super adorable? 

Let's take one last look.

Total cost for the project: $3.50. Now, who doesn't love that?

I'm linking up at Beth's Valentine's mantel party at The Stories of A to Z. Stop by and feel like love :)