Yesterday I woke up and realized that Valentine’s Day was right around the corner. Only a couple of days away…
I really don’t give two hoots about these “Hallmark Holidays” for anything other than a chance to be a little festive and eat fun food.
I’m not into perfectly worded Valentine’s poems or dozens of roses or new jewelry. Andy doesn’t have to do anything out of the ordinary on V-day in order to make me happy.
I already feel like the luckiest girl alive to have been given such a wonderful husband.
In the early days of our marriage, we would go out to a nice dinner on Valentine’s Day and then we started making fondue at home. Just once a year because pulling it all together is kind of an ordeal. I’d gather filet mignon, shrimp, scallops, chicken, an array of veggies, and homemade dipping sauces. We’d have fun dipping and eating until we were completely stuffed.
Then I’d wash the fondue pot and fill it up with chocolate to dip marshmallows, strawberries and cake chunks into.
I’m tired just thinking about all that hard work!
This year we are going to have a simple cheese fondue dinner with the girls. I’m going to buy a couple different types of sausage, some hearty bread, and tart apples to slice up, and we’re going to dip and dip until we are stuffed :)
So, when I realized yesterday that I needed to shop for the fondue stuff, I immediately thought, “I wish we had some fun Valentine’s decorations around here. It’s too bad I didn’t make any crafts with the girls this year!”
You know, because if I didn’t do it weeks ago, it doesn’t count?!
Sometimes I’m so crazy. Honestly.
The rational brain that is still somewhere inside me piped up and shouted, “Do it today! You still have two days before the actual holiday, silly!”
So that’s what we did!
When Avery went down for her nap, I headed to my craft area (aka pileup of supplies in the basement) and grabbed all of my pink & red scrapbook paper, some glue, ribbons, tissue paper and pom pons and brought them up to the dining room table.
Grace and I opened Pinterest on my iPad and went to work searching for simples crafts that we had all the supplies for.
It was so fun letting her choose the things we made. They were not at all what I would have picked, but they were super cute!
She’s a serious animal lover, so the things that caught her eye were animals made from paper hearts. We ended up making a raccoon, a mouse and a fish.
The best thing about these was that they didn’t require a ton of special supplies. Mainly colored paper which I have an abundance of from my old scrapbooking days. We had a little baggy of pom pons that we had fun using for embellishments but I think you could do the same thing with dried beans, popcorn kernels or beads.
We also made a heart garland for the living room mirror. I made one last year but ended up throwing it away after shuffling it around the kitchen for weeks. I wish I would have held onto it so that I’d have two this year. Oh well. I’ll keep this one on hand for next year :)
While rinsing an empty salsa jar to throw in the recycle bin yesterday morning, I had the thought that it would be fun to paint it or somehow transform it into something cute for the house, but didn’t really know what exactly to do with it or if I’d really have any inspiration.
After seeing this pin on Pinterest though, I had my “A-ha” moment, and Grace and I turned that little salsa jar into a fun Valentine’s candle holder!
These were all very simple, but so much fun! Grace loved using her glue stick to assemble the animals after I cut out the hearts. She had fun stringing the hearts onto the garland and painting the glue on the jar for the candle holder.
We put our little creations around the house and admired them all afternoon. In fact, Grace looked around and noticed a bunch of non-festive places that she wants to deck out with more Valentine’s spirit, so I think we’ll resume our crafting this afternoon after ballet :)
You are so cute, and such a good mom!!!