Post-Valentine's Day

The kids came home with their valentine boxes full of special valentines and candy yesterday! I sat with them and went through each one and put all their candy in a bag for later.

Here is the final product of the Valentine's I made for the kids to take to school.  I was thrilled with how they turned out and they got TONS of compliments on them! Click here for a quick tutorial on how to make your own!

I hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day filled with lots of hugs and kisses... and chocolate!

Stop on over to Melissa's Blog: The Joys of Home Educating to see a little feature she did on a set of cupcake wrappers she received from my Cupcake Wrapper of the Month Club!

If you'd like to give someone, or yourself, a membership to my Cupcake Wrapper of the Month Club, you can get them at my Zibbet Shop & my Etsy Shop!

Easy Last MInute Valentine Ideas

I have seen these ALL OVER the blogosphere so forgive me for not giving credit to one blog or another.

These are great EASY last minute Valentine Ideas for your kids.  I am actually ahead of things here for once and am getting these done today, rather than the night before they need to be taken to school! Ha Ha!

All you need is a cute kid (check), and a camera (check)...

Have your child stand with their arm extended toward your camera and fist tight as if they are holding a sucker! (Make sure their thumb is up so that it will look right when you insert the sucker in the picture)

Edit your photo in any software (optional). I used Picnic through Picasa.. so fun!
Add borders and text.

Have these printed off at your nearest CVS, WalMart, etc... (or from your home printer)

Grab a bag of suckers, cut little slits in the photo where the sucker would go in the hand.  Then insert the sucker through the two slits in the photo and you are done!

Valentines from soup cans

Better late then never... IF EVER! My poor son has been waiting to have his Valentine's Party since last week. The snow has cancelled school for nearly two straight weeks here. So, this weekend, we were putting all the final touches on his valentines.... only to have school cancelled AGAIN this morning due to an overnight 'dusting' of snow. He is heartbroken.

ANYWAYS....
My son is in a preschool class of about 10 kiddos. I wanted to make some special Valentine's for him to take to his class, as well as treats for his teachers.

As cold as it's been here (compared to what we were used to in Hawaii) we've eaten a LOT of soup. So I've been keeping the cans and using my edgeless can opener (when I remember) to save the pull tab lids. I've also got some Chai and baby formula containers.
I measured the height and circumference of the cans, and cut out some fun pink and red valentine worthy scrapbook paper.
Then I used my ever so handy Mod Podge and painted a wide strip down the side of the cans to anchor the edge of the paper.
I wrapped the paper around, then pasted the end of the paper with another painted strip of Mod Podge.
Then I added some 'flare'.

Cut out some circles with my 'baby' (Cricut) and trimmed them to fit under the tab on the lids.

Now they are ready to fill with some Valentine treats! I used E6000 to seal the lids back on. I've heard that the glue can sometimes be too strong and effect the taste of the candy. I used all prepackaged candy, so I hope that doesn't happen! Then I tied some red raffia to the tab on top.My son had the brilliant idea to tape his Cars Valentine's and pencils to the sides. All my ideas to attach them weren't quite up to par. He is so smart! They don't really match, but he's a boy, and I guess I can't always have my way!!!Here are the cookie bouquets I made for his 2 teachers also using recycled cans for the holders.
And if that isn't enough... he also was on the schedule to bring treats this week too! So, why not go all out and do valentine pink/red/white swirl cupcakes with frosting and topped with a sugar cookie and heart shaped wafers I found at Michaels.
Let's just pray they have school tomorrow so that all these goodies get eaten!! I hope you all had a very happy and LOVEly Valentine's Day!

Ornaments for my $1 Tree

Okay, so I couldn't stand it. My little DT tree that I transformed HERE needed some L-O-V-E. I ran down to my craft room and cut out 3 different sizes of hearts on my cricut. 1/2, 3/4, & 1 inch hearts. I glued on some string hangers...

Blobbed on the glue on one side of each heart (to cover the string hangers)...

and drowned them in glitter.

Then I scattered them on my little tree.

I {heart} my little heart tree!

DT tree: $1
Antique white paint: on hand
Black pot paint: on hand
paper, string, glue, glitter: on hand
Total cost for this tree: $1

Announcing...

I've just started listing my new cupcake wrappers! My new design includes the tabbed end for easy assembly! No more straight edges that need stickers! One easy step {Insert tab in slit} and you're ready for cupcakes! The wrappers below are what I have listed already in my Etsy shop! I can even make matching cake/cupcake picks for any wrappers. Just ask!

Want different colors? Want something you don't see? Just ask me! I love custom orders! I have lots of more designs I can't wait to get listed. I'll do my best to post them here as well as I get them done!

Don't forget to check out my clearance stash. I'm trying to clear out the "old style" wrappers to make room for my new ones! Thanks!

Button Heart Tutorial

I've had lots of comments on my button hearts posted here, and thought I'd post a quick tutorial for you all. I also submitted it to Totally Tutorials Blog & Fave Crafts.

You will need:
*Buttons
*Colored Wire in a guage you can bend easily but will still hold form (I tossed my packages that the wire came in so I have no idea what size I used)
*Wire cutters (not pictured)
*Ribbon

Step 1: Cut about a 12 inch wire (this will give you about a 3 inch tall heart)
Step 2: Start stringing your buttons one at a time, leaving 1 inch of wire on each end for twisting together. String 0ne button hole at a time. String the other button hole once your button is in its final position on the wire. The wire will not feed through both button holes at once. I use around 12 buttons per ornament, but it all depends on the size of buttons you use. Just eye ball it!
Step 3: Join the two ends together and twist them tight.
You can cut the remaining wire with your wire cutters or you can swirl a design at the bottom if you wish.

Step 4: Cut your ribbon for hanging the ornament. Feed one end through the wire at the top of the heart and tie the ends in a pretty little bow!And now your 'cute as a button' button heart ornament is ready to hang!I still have some of these available in my etsy shop if you are interested in purchasing!!!


**And to answer the question of one of my readers about the styrofoam balls from this post:

These are made by SIERRA PACIFIC CRAFTS Partners in Creativity. They come in several different color combinations. I purchased them last year at Ben Franklin, in Hawaii, mind you. The retail price was $7.99 but I got them on sale for a lot less. If you have trouble finding these before your party, let me know, I'll be glad to make some ornaments for you. I have some listed in my etsy shop! Good Luck!

Crystallized Hearts

Over Christmas I saw these snowflakes here among many other various sites. So I thought...why not make hearts? So, here is my version of crystallized shapes... Valentines style.

*First you have to create your desired shape (heart) with pipe cleaners.
(You can used colored pipe cleaners, or you can add a drop or two of food coloring to the borax if you only have white pipe cleaners.) I used white and pink pipe cleaners.

*Tie a string around it and hang it in a wide mouth glass jar with a pencil. Be sure that it will be free hanging and can be covered completely with the borax solution.

*Boil water. Add the borax to water:
3 T Borax for each 1 cup boiling water

*Stir until dissolved.

*Pour solution into jars until your pipe cleaner shapes are covered.
*Let sit overnight in a place that will be undisturbed.

This was just after a couple hours:

As you can see each one progresses differently. And a little side note, don't worry if your jars start crystallizing, just rinse them with HOT water when you are done and dissolve the crystals!

While we wait, here's an explanation as to why this all happens (courtesy wikipedia):

Borax is a material that grows into a crystal naturally. Just like snowflakes are crystals that form when warmer water in the clouds cools enough a borax solution will cool into crystals. The reason we use hot water to make borax crystals is because borax will disolve into water. Hot water can hold more borax than cold water can. So when the borax is stirred into the hot water until no more will fit, it is called supersaturated. As it cools, it cannot hold as much borax in each water molecule, so it realeases some of the borax into it's natural repeating mineral shape. It's just like a sugar crystal or a salt crystal. They will do the same thing as the borax when disolved in hot water, only they take a lot longer to crystalize.

About 6-8 hours later...Hellooooo Gorgeous!

Button Heart Ornaments

I have bags of buttons I've accumulated over the past few years. So I pulled out my RED bag and some RED wire and started stringing different reds and pinks along the wire (ouch)... the wire should have been a more pliable gauge..... *note to self for next time*

I just bent them into heart shapes, and tied a red ribbon on them!

Anyways, Besides my sore fingers, I love how they turned out!

Like them? They are available in my etsy shop! In white too!

The LOVE Shelf

Remember my SANTA shelf? You can see it HERE. Now that Christmas is over, it was time to replace my 5 letter word with another... well, how about a 4 letter word + a heart?! I just cut our 3x3 inch squares of scrapbook paper and used my handy dandy Cricut machine for the word LOVE and the heart. I {heart} my LOVE shelf!

Valentine Topiary

I've been scouring the internet looking for ideas to decorate my home after Christmas. Valentine ideas are popping up all over. I also want to find crafts that I already have the supplies for. When I came across this adorable topiary idea, I couldn't wait to get started.

MY ALTERATIONS: Instead of a wooden dowel, I used a tall cinnamon stick (that way you don't have to paint it! And instead of pinning each circle, I used my glue gun! I am thrilled with how it turned out! I think I'll try to make more!

Find the tutorial at THE IDEA ROOM HERE.

Valentine Paper Hearts

I saw these here and couldn't wait to try them out. I just took down my Christmas decorations and now, my house in naked all over again. It doesn't help that as soon as we moved in, I started decorating for Christmas. Now that it's all packed away now, I'm back at square one. So... I'm searching for fun and affordable decorating ideas. And this, my friends, is definitely one of them!

I used a pencil to roll the paper, and then dabbed a dot of glue just like she said to in the tutorial to hold the heart in place. Then I threw mine in a jar with silver tinsil from Christmas. Ta-da! Instant Valentine's Day decor!