Glitterati

It's taken me a few days to be able to post this because my hubby had the camera at work with him.

I've never been huge on decorating for "minor" holidays, (ok, let's be honest, I only ever decorate for Christmas), but this year I wanted to dive in and start decorating other times of the year, too. First up, Valentine's Day.

You all saw this easy-peasy heart garland we made a few weeks ago, but it just wasn't doing it for me. (Whatever "it" is...). It's cute, but it just wasn't enough. So, a couple weeks ago while I was out and about, I stumbled across a styrofoam heart wreath, and some glitter. Had to get it because who knew when I would be out that way again.

I couldn't take any "during" pictures because, like I said, Sam had the camera at work with him. But here's a little sneak peak before the projects were completely finished:





Finished projects:

Hanging hearts inspired by THIS POST.



Hearts cut out of cereal boxes, used a paint brush to spread white school glue around in a thin layer, sprinkled glitter, (or rather, poured glitter) all over the heart (and all around the table and floor... eek!). Let dry, flipped over and did the same to the back side. We used different colors on both sides for a fun effect. Hung up on our light w/ white ribbon. Easy peasy and so fun for the kids. (I'm going to be cleaning up glitter for months!)

THIS blog post inspired the next craft:



I had some twine that I started wrapping around the heart, but it was too thin and wasn't giving me the look I was hoping for, so I scrapped that and went with red ribbon instead. Then using the same technique as the glitter hearts above, (i.e. using a paintbrush to lightly spread white craft glue all along the surface), I glitterized (haha) an old frame I had in my closet. I wish I had spray paint, but alas. I kind of like it. It's funky. And it could probably be used with several different holidays, I just have to change what's hanging inside. :)

(Funny story... when my hubby came home from work and saw the frame while it was drying, his eyes widened in horror and said, "You're not putting our family picture in that, are you?" Haha, I still laugh about it.)

I can't decide if I like the black in the background or not. If I was hanging the frame, I would not have the black there, but since I needed to use the frame stand, the black is there.

**Note** You can head over to my family blog to hear a special love song every day leading up to Valentine's Day. :)

Simple Felt Heart Garland

I am repenting! I have been daydreaming too much and getting so sucked into reading other people's craft blogs, that I haven't done any crafting myself! Well, last night, that all changed. My hubby was on-call at work again, which meant I could get out my sewing machine and all my stuff and having it laying around guilt-free! :)

I've been seeing a lot of Valentine's decor lately on the blogs, and I was wishing I could make something. But since our flat is so small, and HK isn't exactly the craft capitol of the world, it's hard to do much decorating. But when I saw THIS simple felt heart valentine garland, I knew it would be perfect.

First I cut out about a million little felt hearts, (thankfully I had felt left over from my Mr. Potato Head project), and then Maya and Zoe helped me arrange them into order. And we decided to jazz some of them up by adding stripes. Fun, right? (Please excuse the unmade bed and surrounding mess. It was a really laid back day, lol)



I first took the ones that were going to have stripes and just sewed all the stripes on, and then trimmed around the edges. When I finished that, I just sewed them all together through the middles. (The ones that have contrasting hearts layered on them don't have any additional stitching holding them on besides the stitches through the middle.)





Cute, right?

My very first Valentine's Day decoration!

(And how cute is this? Maya went to a birthday party on Saturday, and she got a little felt sewing kit project. Here she is trying to sew. I helped her a bit, but I think this project might be a little advanced for her. Any ideas for a simple sewing craft for kids?)