It is too early for easter decorations?

1st Real Valentine's Day

This year is Aden's first year of school. Pre-school, that is. Along with being in school now, comes alot of firsts. Today was his first Valentine's Day party! Now many of you may or may not know, Aden does NOT like candy. So, when it came time to pick out his treat to give to his classmates for Valentine's Day, he didn't want to give them candy, because he said "candy is yucky". Guess what he chose? pencils with hearts on them and erasers in the shape of hearts and of course BAKUGAN valentines! Bakugans are his favortie thing for the moment. So, I let him have his way and added some chocolate.




I know you were distracted from looking at the valentine treat, by his unique facial expression, meaning his lips. No, he was not stung by a bee, nor did he get lip injections. That is his standard face for pictures these days. I don't know where he picked it up . . . but please tell me it is a phase.

St. Patrick's Day

After talking to some friends, I have come to find out most people don't decorate for St. Patrick's Day. Well, to be honest, neither have I in the past. However, like a true crafter, I can't resist making something. It is most likely to be the only thing I make for St. Patrick's Day. Especially since I need to focus on EASTER, which is right around the corner. I know what you are saying, EASTER? It's only a month and a half away. For a crafter, that is not very much time to make things to put up, since they need to be up BEFORE easter comes.



I drew the letters and clover free hand on a piece of scrap wood my husband had in the garage, cut them out with our saw and mod podged paper onto them. Now when the valentine stuff comes down, I am ready with the St. Patrick's Day decoration.

LAST ONE

This is my last Valentine's Day craft for this year. I promise. Besides, with my dislike of clutter and nick nacky things, I can't fit another Valentine craft in my house.



The idea came from a friend who saw a picture of something similar. When I saw it, I immediately said "Hey, we can make that" I drew then cut out the hearts myself, attach some dowels cut to different sizes, stick those in blocks of wood, paint, decorate and that's it! They are really cute. Probably the cutest Valentine's Day craft I have. If you double click on the picture, you can see it in more detail.

Organizing at 1:00 a.m.?!!

There I was, starting to organize my crafting supplies at 1:00 this morning. I found some buttons here, a letter there, some cute paper here and started putting it all together . . . and before I knew it . . . I had made this . . .

Unfortunately, I didn't get anything organized. Fortunately, I found a use for one of the 14 frames I bought ages ago on sale at Michaels.

Burlap

I saw this idea on another website and knew I had to try it, since normally burlap is not the most attractive thing. However, in this case, it turned out to make one darn cute decoration!

It is just strips of burlap, scrunched onto a metal hanger that I shaped into a heart! You are saying too easy right? Well, that's because it is EASY!! NOTE TO SELF: never work with burlap wearing black. . . it gets everywhere!

Ditching it!

I am ditching the "private" blog thing. I'm not going to be posting anything that I don't want people to see, so everyone, enjoy!

Picture Board

I know, I know. My blog is titled "The Smith Diaries" and I have posted nothing about our family yet. I will when we do something exciting that I think the blogging world would be interested in. But in the meantime, you will have to suffer and see my crafts. Here is a really neat picture board I made. I forced my sister in law to make one too. She claims she is not a crafter and the thought of it stresses her out, but I could clearly see she is in denial and I have vowed to make a crafter out of her.

I bought a sheet of aluminum and attached it to a board. Then cut some moulding, attached that to the board to make a frame and painted it black. I made all the magnets myself by making or buying cute little things and putting little round magnets on the back. Attach pictures and you are done!

Here are some more Valentine's Day decorations that I made. The blocks below have different paper on each side with different embellishments on them, so I can turn them for different looks.




The frame below is an idea that I got from a talented friend for Christmas, and I adjusted it for Valentine's Day. It consists of pieces of different paper cut out and attached together, then just stickers and stuff for embellishments.


Very simple blocks, used my favorite mod podge to stick the paper on, drew and cut out the letters by hand, attached them with adhesive. Added little rinestones for that "sparkle".

Finally

I did it! I actually made my deadline for having my blog officially up and running. Being my first entry, I am still new to this, so please ignore the many imperfections. Many of you know I love being crafty, or at least I try to be :) So, what better way to start my blogging debut, then with a Valentine's Day craft I worked on today. It is super easy and very inexpensive!

I bought the frames at Michaels for $1 each. The hearts came in a package of three for $1.99 and I already had the paper and the ribbon. See? SUPER inexpensive! Jeremy sprayed the frames for me, because they were a hideous shiny gold. I cut out the plastic like cover in the middle of the frame, and replaced it with cute paper. Tied ribbon to the heart and attached it to the frame ! Voila! A cute Valentine's Day decoration.