Valentine's Day Spruce Ups

So this week has been a great time to clean and spruce up the inside of the house for Valentine's Day. 

So I rearranged the living room. Here is the after shot. Very happy to have a spot for everyone to sit and we can still push the couch back to the wall and move the coffee table back for game night. 

Then, I decided I needed to spruce up and make / find some Valentines Day decor. We have some special guests coming for a Valentine's Day dinner so we wanted it to be special.

So... At Target, I got these few items.

Hearts for the back door... $1 each, they're felt and look super cute. And yes I need to clean off the porch, but it's been too cold for that this week so far...

Then... I got a table runner for $3!

Then, I found this awesome little banner that was also $3! The boys and I had fun putting it together.

And I also made the black and white box behind the banner, I'll be posting on that soon.

So then we went to the Dollar Tree. Everything was $1. 

Pink plant stakes - 7/$1

Zebra placemats! If it's wrong to LOVE these, then I don't wanna be right!

And then... 

Some orchid looking flowers to go on the display on the pass through to the living room...

Each sprig... $1.00! Yippee!!!

So, then we took some old scrapbook paper, some card stock and cut hearts. Then I put everyone's name on one and hung them up. Turned out too cute.

Hope you felt inspired to decorate your little corner of the world for Valentine's Day. Love is in the air!

Have a great day friends!!!

J

Christmas Ornament Craft!!!

Today I was thinking of ways to save money on gifts and I managed to put together TEN gifts for less than THIRTY DOLLARS! 

So here is the process. I purchased some small wood pieces from the arts and crafts store. They looked like this: 

I got square ones and circular ones.

I took some fine grit sand paper and sanded them a bit. Then, I got out some green acrylic craft paint and painted two coats on each wood piece. I had to do the backs first and then the fronts with drying time in between.

Once they were dry, I printed some family photos out to go on the front. I had to measure them, using the ruler function on the word processing program. I measured them at 3 inches. I had to make the circle ones a little smaller than the square ones.

I used mod podge to affix the pictures to the wood pieces.

I painted a coat of mod podge on the sides and underneath each photo and then a coat atop each photo.

Once they were dry, I took some ribbon and made a loop with it and stuck some labels I printed on my laser printer.

Then I used a little 3" length of white packing tape to secure the ribbon onto the wood pieces.

This is the finished product...

I hope this gets your creative juices flowing.

Have a great evening, friends!