What words to share? So much romance and poetry in words of the heart and I choose THESE. ❤️Remade into hearts and pinks for the occasion. 💕If we are going to celebrate love this week, let it begin with a heaping helping of love for ourselves. ❤️ If this one struck you as words that hit home, go to my stories and grab it as a wallpaper. You can also find it in the Freebie Highlights. ❤️ Take this one all in and pass it on to anyone who could use it, too.
Tired of the usual celebrations? Here's 14 ways to celebrate silly for Valentine's Day.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. One, twoo, fhree. Valentine's Day is all about the deep and meaningful love languages as well as the sappy and silly gestures that show you care.
This year we're going all in silly for Valentine's Day, and I wanted to share our fourteen favorite ideas for bringing some fun to February 14!
Tell me, tell me! What would you add to the list? Happy Valentine's Day, you wonderful person, you. Catch you this weekend for some of my favorite links.
This week we're sharing all the easy. Yesterday's bubble messages were round one. Enter the eraser ring as round two! We gave these to C's Brownie troop, and they were a huge hit.
These printable tags make ring candy or ring erasers the coolest valentine! Because easy valentines are the best kind.
This is completely not a sponsored post, but, let's be real here, Target has the best finds. For $3 we found this 24-pack of glamorous and geometric rings. They are jumbo-sized, you know, just in case you have a bunch of grown-ups who might delight in a fancy eraser ring. Ahem.
We wanted to make something super tiny, similar to a price tag to add onto the rings. The smallest Valentine you might send is right here for you in our printable. And you know I can't resist the pun whenever possible. And so we present,
Grab a hole punch, some ribbon, twine, or yarn. We've grouped a lot of tags on one page to save you paper, too! Valentine's Day was never so girly and easy peasy.
These printable tags make ring candy or ring erasers the coolest valentine! Because easy valentines are the best kind.
Keep the love going! And have a fabulous Valentine's Day.
Paper straws as easels! The perfect place for your favorite sweet message and a great place card for your Valentine celebration.
I can't help it. I love all things Valentine. The burst of reds and pinks in the middle of dreary gray winter is perfect-o. Today we're going all out with striped fun and a quick, easy project made from the classic paper straw.
The mini easels are fabulous for a romantic message, your child's adorable valentine, or your party's place cards! You can whip these up in ten minutes, too, so no extra stressing involved (fist bump).
For each easel you need two straws, a small piece of thin wire, scissors, and a bit of glue.
Paper straws as easels! The perfect place for your favorite sweet message and a great place card for your Valentine celebration.
You have two straws. Take the first and bend it in half. Flatten the straw a bit at the fold. At the point of the fold, make a small cut that goes not even halfway through the straw.
Cut the second straw in half. One piece will be used as the back leg of the easel. With the other small piece, bend it in half to use as the base for the front of the easel.
Paper straws as easels! The perfect place for your favorite sweet message and a great place card for your Valentine celebration.
Take the long, bent straw and the back leg straw and feed a small piece of wire through the leg and one of the sides. This will give you some control of how your easel stands. Trim the wires right at the bottom of the straws and curl them over the bottom edge of the straw.
Paper straws as easels! The perfect place for your favorite sweet message and a great place card for your Valentine celebration.
Stand the tripod easel. With the folded small piece. glue each end to the front of the easel so that it creates a v-shaped shelf in the front for your Valentine message!
Paper straws as easels! The perfect place for your favorite sweet message and a great place card for your Valentine celebration.
We've made a set of these for a Galentine party for my oldest. The easels have enough celebration in them to set the whole tone of love and friendship for any kind of festivity!
Happy celebrating!
Conversation hearts are the iconic candy of Valentine's Day, but candies themselves could use a taste boost. What if you could send sweet nothings and enjoy some chewy chocolate, too? These brownie hearts are easy and charming for an after school treat or a romantic finale to a dinner in.
Pull out your heart-shaped cookie cutter, a box of brownie mix (or make from scratch if you're ready for that), and bamboo skewers. These arrow skewers are my favorite! Use a permanent marker to change their natural tone to something more heartastic for Valentine's.
Valentine conversation hearts just got a lot more tasty! Turn brownies into special messages for Valentine's Day.
Bake your brownies as usual and let them cool completely. Press cookie cutter into the brownies and remove onto another plate.
To stencil on your message, download the svg file Be Mine and Hug Me. Cut these with your Cricut Explore or with a sharp craft knife. Sprinkle powdered sugar into the stencil and carefully press the sugar into the letters.
Valentine conversation hearts just got a lot more tasty! Turn brownies into special messages for Valentine's Day.
Finally, put on your cupid wings, and push the skewers through the heart, like arrows, and present to the one you love.
Valentine conversation hearts just got a lot more tasty! Turn brownies into special messages for Valentine's Day.
Looking forward to sharing another Valentine treat with you tomorrow! It's become a favorite at our house.
P.S. If you're looking for an easy way for your child to bring in classroom Valentines, turn one of her or his shirts into a fun, no sew bag!
Happy Valentine's Day, lovelies!! Have I told you lately that I love you? Today is the day to do it. And I do! Thank you for all your love, commenting, faithful reading, and support. How are you spending your day and/or weekend to celebrate? We have small plans to go out to a movie together and enjoy a heart-shaped pizza, but I'm mostly looking forward to the warmth of the fire and snuggles on the couch as we tune into the Olympics.
Valentine's day with all the color and emotion is one of my faves! I can't help it; what can I say? I always wanted to work for Hallmark as a child.
The great people of Cricut sent me (and many other talented folks) a gift of crafting goodies including stacks of hearts in all shapes, sizes, and colors and encouraged us to give someone we love - a heart attack. This is only the best kind, of course... so I decided my daughters needed some extra lovin' in their lunchboxes. AND, I can't resist an opportunity to make a pop up heart.
Grab your crafting wire, spin it around your finger to create a coil, and washi tape it to the lunchbox. Ta da - a surprise I love you pops out as you open your lunch!
These hearts came pre-cut and ready to string for the perfect drawbridge banner!
And who says your mesh pouch can't double as a banner hanger to send some extra hugs and kisses?
That intricate cut Valentine? All thanks to the fabulous Cricut Explore. Thanks for making me look like a rockstar mom!!
Why not go over the top a little today? Or reach out to everyone you love? Let's LOVE BIG.
Happy Valentine's Day!
xoxo, MJ
Happy (almost) Valentine's Day, friends! We are in full-on Valentine prep around here with classroom parties galore. The great folks at Minted offered us classroom valentines of our choice (and, oh, the choices!), and I'm pretty sure these are the nicest valentines we've ever sent. They came personalized with my daughter's names, too, so we've had fun adding special touches to the envelopes (hello ring pops) since the hard work was already done!
Since our cards are stepping it up this year, we decided to take our valentine container up to the next level, too. Did you decorate shoe boxes to collect your valentines as a kid? Or make a heart complete with doilies and ribbon to hold your cards? I did, and I loved the creation of the container almost as much as the cutesy notes themselves.
Well, times have not changed, but instead of gluing my box or envelope, my kids and I crafted some sassy t-shirt bags to tote our love notes. These bags are super easy, upcycled, and take less time than construction paper and glue (no...really). I have a sewing machine that loves dark corners of my basement, and I wasn't ready to change its mind for this project so I found this idea and made it valentine.
(And also, I love that my daughters were most excited to send their teachers cards!)
STEP ONE:
Dig to the bottom of the drawer, or for us the bag of giveaway clothes. We found a pink and a red t-shirt that were too small to wear but in awesome shape, ready to be remade. *Just a note, if you're making a bag suitable for kids, use a kids t-shirt so that the bag won't be too large for their size.
STEP TWO:
We wanted a blank canvas so we turned the shirt inside out. Trim off the tag as well as the sleeves (with a little extra for the handles). Next trim a rounded or squared shape from the neckline to create the handles of your bag.
STEP THREE:
We made our bag with three holes in the bottom and therefore we cut three slits at the bottom of the shirt, about equi-distant from one another.
STEP FOUR:
With the sleeves that you trimmed, cut 1/2 inch strips the entire length of the sleeve width. Pull on the strip to make it curl on the edges (neat-o trick).
STEP FIVE:
Grab one of the strips, pin it with a safety pin on the end and feed it through the seam allowance at the bottom of the shirt. Thread it through two sections of the shirt, pull the cord, and tie a knot. Continue to do this with the two other strips and the remaining seam sections. Tie all ends into one large knot at the bottom of the bag.
STEP SIX:
Grab your freezer paper and cut a heart stencil. Apply paint evenly with the brush or sponge of your choice. We chose a metallic paint to add some shimmer to the bag and stamped simple hearts on the front and back.
That's all there is to it! Our first shirt took us 20 minutes with painting included, and we whipped up the second in under 10.
My 9-yo could craft these on her own, and they'd make great party favor bags for a sleepover or to go bags from a crafternoon.
Maybe gift wrap for a galentine's day present?Or make one for yourself to show that you love Love Day!
Happy Valentine's, dear readers. You all are the sweetest!
xoxo, MJ
Hey lovelies! Valentine's Day is but a week away, and we are stamping, sticking, and stuffing some gorgeous classroom valentines from Minted at our house. Check back next week for a super cute bag we'll be making to tote all the love notes!
Have I mentioned that I'm a classroom mom? I have resisted and avoided for five years until this year, my oldest daughter's teacher asked me (!) to be the stewardship parent. And I said, only if my husband and I can do it together. So we are. We are the parents for the class which means we get to organize their service projects (which is really why I jumped in) and plan their parties (which is really why I ran away at any notion of assisting in the past).
The third graders will have a simple yet fun-filled celebration of friendship and love, rotating from center to center. I've been scouring the interwebs and pinboards to find crafts that are hip enough for this tween age and easy enough to accomplish in 15 minutes.
Here are my top five picks for a Rad Classroom Valentines:
1. Paper heart chain: Easy supplies, great results. Make one for your doorway even if you don't have kids!
2. Orgami hug: Two hand prints and an accordion fold and kids can declare their love.
3. Arrows through my heart: Free printable for these beauties. And don't forget about the red velvet.
4. Chocolate covered strawberries: Slice, coat, drizzle. Repeat. And save some for the class.
5. Awesome sauce!: Love this simple addition to store bought sauce.
Any fabulous ideas you want to share?
xoxo, MJ
This is what I've been staring at the last few weeks. Lots of whites and shades of gray (no, not that one). Perhaps that's why I'm craving touches of red and Valentine's to satisfy my need for color and celebration.
What are you doing to keep the blues and grays away?
Jenn over on the ModCloth blog has this super simple idea of transforming simple flathead tacks with nail polish! Lovelies, we could do this in a few moments. How cute to paint some simple hearts on these and pin your love notes up for those you hold dear? I'm hoping to pull out some red polish and create Valentine goodness.
You all know I can't resist an easy paper craft. Jessica over at How About Orange has a two-step process for irresistably simple three-dimensional hearts. Seriously, when you see the instructions, you'll wonder why you never thought of it. And her use of loads of little and bigs on a wall totally inspires me to fill a room with these expressions of love. Can you imagine lining them up as a pathway to a great little dinner you've planned for just the two of you? Hmmm...
I saved the most genius for the final link. Brittany from The House That Built created a unique Valentine wrapping paper that tops the cake. That first method of cutting and folding shapes to reveal a burst of color below, to die for!! What do you need to also become the crafter extraordinaire? Two different colored papers and scissors. This method could be wonderful used for Christmas trees in December, balloons for birthdays, stars for special achievements... the wheels are turning.
My Itty Bitty this week?
Before you head out the door or start into your first task, text a few lines of love, encouragement, or just sillyness to someone on your contact list. This week, I've been sending them to the hubs, local friends, far away friends, and the responses are always immediate, grateful, and full of joy. It's better than brownies for breakfast (I had to do my own experiment, of course, to be sure).
Have a bright weekend, friends, even if the skies are gray.
XOXO, MJ
The boxes of valentines have been purchased and the myriad of heart pictures, stamping, cards, and cut outs have begun around our house.
I've been a romantic nearly my whole life, decorating my little girl room with piles of pink and red construction paper heart chains. As I grew older and my romance fell upon beaus, I'd create oodles of cupid-speared hearts written in curlicues and glitter and write out love poetry to adorn my walls and windows.
These days my adorations fall upon 3 little people and a great guy, and I find myself drawn to the simple, daily ways to say I love you always and forever (and I support every effort to fill the house with heart-shaped everythings).
We've been having a ton of snow around here lately, and everyone, save me, loves to be out in the snow and in the sled so I have galiantly taken on the role of Hot Chocolate Barista. My people claim that I am THE best hot chocolate maker. Ever. I'm not sharing my secret recipe, but I am sharing something to make Valentine hot cocoa, coffee, or tea extra sweet.
I've had this container of bamboo forks ever since I hosted a Hunger Games bookclub party with friends, and I've been awaiting Cupid's prompting to use them.
Here's what you need to make some for the lovelies in your life:
+ Brownie mix (and necessary ingredients)
+ Heart mold baking tray
+ Bamboo forks (I dyed mine red for the holiday with food coloring. Just squirt the food coloring right onto the skewer and spread.)
+ Notes/String for special messages
These are basically brownie bites so make the brownies more on the cake than fudge side. Bake the bites a little less than half the total time for a full sheet of brownies. Keep an eye on them as these times vary.
Once the brownies are cool, carefully spear Cupid's arrow through the middle and wipe the end clean. Add special notes with string or twine or leave them as is for a yummy addition to any hot drink.
Happy Valentine's, dear friends. Who's ready to cut up some paper doilies with me?
xoxo, MJ
Here's some new Friday fun for you, my lovely friends. Itty Bitty Lovelies will include some big and small ideas and links that I've found that won't require you to invest your entire weekend (or take a short vacation) to accomplish. These snippets are scrumptious morsels that you can work into your everyday and make it just a little bit more magical. I'm even throwing in a very practical tip or two that I've discovered during the week. Most of these will not be asteroids of unbelievability, but they may just make your life a little bit easier... and that would make me more than itty bitty happy.
Do you make the delectable cinnamon roll in your house? These look so good. You can move away from the traditional spiral to an endearing heart shape. Super easy with big impact! Check out the recipe over at Cake & Allie.
This monkey craft is great for a class Valentine or a little homemade love for your near and dear. I'd love to see it in red and pink for an extra obvious Valentine feel. You can do this with the kiddos if you have a half hour to spare. The crafters over at Fiskars have all the info you need.
Felt fortune cookies? Yes, I see them in your future. This one will be a trip to the craft store, but the finished effect is awesome...and would be perfect for that very special announcement or enduring declaration of love. The brilliant contributors over at Honest to Nod have the deets.
My itty bitty discovery this week?
I am a much happier human being if I can get school lunches and snacks packed before dinner. What's the big deal? I'm not sure, but it's definitely a daily pick-me-up to know that my evenings are clear for work, blogging, and chilling with the hubs rather than food prep. What's your thought?
It's big, bad, beautiful to be back with you all. Thanks for visiting. Come on back next week; we'll have a good time.
XOXO, MJ
