garland... a handful of hearts

with the ending of each season, my mind begins to spin with ideas for new garlands... i knew for valentines day, hearts would be the most expected...

 but i knew that i didn't want to use felt like i did with the trees... the pumpkins had such cute detailing with their stems and green, twirly vines... the posies have unique button centers...

 

i wanted to create something that had some dimension... years ago, i made a series of valentine's day t-shirts for one of maizie's sweet, pre-school teachers... each shirt featured a bunchy, ruffly heart in different pinks and reds... i had forgotten about them, until my mom mentioned that maybe that design would make a cute heart garland...

 

i gave it a try and love how they're turning out...

i've started a production line...

so many fun patterns and designs...

i found a few more fabrics to incorporate during my late night trip to the fabric store on monday evening...

these will be keeping me busy over the next few weeks... for that i am thankful...

 

how do you decorate for valentine's day?

 

xo

angie

 



valentine touches here and there...

little touches of valentine's day are making there way about our home... thought i'd share a few of them with you...

{jar of hearts... going on my dresser}

remember these hearts?... i sewed them together... 

now they're hanging from the chandelier in our breakfast nook...

and i made little tags from these supplies...

 i thought it would be cute to clip these to the front of a wire caddy that holds milk bottles that my mom and dad surprised me with a few years back... it's one of my favorite things...

i covered some mini clothespins with washi tape and clipped them on...

and i bought myself some tulips... i think that they are the prettiest flower... and look... there were 7 in my bunch instead of 6... what a happy surprise when i got home...

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now... i have an announcement... the hand knit dish cloth giveaway winner is...

 congratulations, sylvia!!! please email your info to oopsiemaizie@yahoo.com so i can get your happy mail sent out to you...

thanks to all who took the time to comment and enter...

have a happy day~

angie

how we spent our snow day...

the girls had a snow day today... marina woke up at 5 a.m. and maizie was up at around 7:30... so much for sleeping in :)...

"what are we going to do today?" is the biggest question asked in our house... and it's usually as soon as their feet hit the floor in the morning... or the variation of the question... "what are we going to do tomorrow?" which is always asked at bedtime...

since we were home and there was no way that i was heading out in single digit temps, i broke out the new heart punch and some patterned scrapbook papers for me, and some art supplies to get the girls going for the day...

while they drew and painted, i punched hearts...

 bunches of them... i think i'm going to string them together to hang from the little chandelier that's in our breakfast nook...

the girls were busy drawing in black ink, on old book pages... and then painting some of the details...

a valentine girl... by maizie

a lovebird... by marina

they turned out so sweet... love them and the little hands that did the creating...

have a happy day~

angie

valentine tree artwork~ a tutorial

i was pulling out our valentine decorations today and i came across the valentine tree artwork that the girls made last year...

i love to do artwork with them... not too many days go by over here where there isn't something being drawn, painted, colored, etc...

it makes them happy and that makes me happy...

last year, i saw this idea for these valentine trees on pinterest... the pin led me to the blog scrumdilly-do! and this post where they made valentine trees... {thanks for the fun idea scrumdilly-do :)}

we decided to do a version of them with some supplies we had on hand...

 ~watercolor paper

~brown acrylic craft paint {slightly watered down}

 ~ shades of red acrylic craft paint

 ~ shades of pink acrylic craft paint

 ~potato {carved into a polka dot stamper... you can also use the small, foam circle brushes from your local craft store... i was fresh out of those so we improvised with the potato :)}

~straw

~piece of paper with a large heart shape cut from the center of it {to be used as a template for the tree top}

how we made them:

step one... take your water color paper and add a small amount of watered down brown acrylic paint to the bottom of the page... take the straw and blow the watered paint up the paper... {it's important to tell the children to only blow on the straw... make sure that they know not to suck in}... move the straw to different areas as the trunk of your valentine tree works its way up the paper... go up the page as far as you'd like with the trunk but make sure you leave room for the heart shaped tree top... {your kids will love how neat the paint spreads and branches out}...

{let your trunks completely dry before moving on to step 2...}

step two...  get your red and pink acrylic craft paint ready...

step three... {this part can be done one of two ways}... you can help your child by holding the open heart shape template over their tree trunk paper or you can tape the template paper and tree trunk papers down... dip the polka dot carved potato stamper {or small, foam circle brush} into the pink and red paints and begin filling in the template... random pink and red polka dots... have them stamp up and down... here and there... until the heart is complete...

the picture above shows marina with our hand made polka dot stamp from a potato... she had a lot of fun with this and thought it was really neat to be using a potato instead of a paintbrush...

step four... lift up the template slowly {help the child with this step} and you'll have something like what's pictured below...

{maizie's finished valentine tree}

{marina's finished valentine tree}

allow them to completely dry...

and be sure to take a cute pic of them proudly holding their paintings...

they really enjoyed making these... and i really enjoyed framing them as valentine artwork to display in the month of february...

have a happy day~
angie