Valentine's crafts & decor

Some people hate Valentine's Day and feel its just a made-up holiday for the Hallmark and candy companies. This could be true, but... I still love having a whole day dedicated to celebrating love.

Just like every other day, only more festive :)

I leave for work earlier than Tyson so I was able to leave a heart attack trail to his gifts for him to wake up to.

favorite candy, inside joke monkey, love journal, homemade card, "Love About You" book

I LOVE the deck of cards book I created for Tyson this year. I got a similar idea of off Pinterest but just wanted 14 cards, not 50 like I had seen.

I found this website where you can create personalized gifts. 

The site was so easy to maneuver around. I was also worried about shipping time since it was coming from a faraway land ;). But, I actually received it in under 2 weeks and they were so perfect!

Not to mention, I got the deck of cards for under $13! 

Great price for a customized gift. 

I traced glitter and patterned paper to the size of the cards.
I used words from magazines for the front cover

I cut out pictures from the spare cards to use on the insides of the  covers

I customized each card to have a Valentine theme, a picture of us on the back, as well poems I wrote on each card for 14 things I love about Tyson. 

After punching two holes on the side of each card, I put two small binder rings though and voila! 

I also handmade a card for Tyson. I just had to buy the tan and red paper so it was much cheaper than a pre-written Hallmark card :)

love the glitter arrow

I created a banner to hang across our TV set, strung heart garland down the mirror, and decorated the front table as always :)

Banner: 
Burlap
Paper
Hot Glue gun/sticks

The easiest way to cut straight on burlap is to pull a strand out all the way, leaving an empty straight line.

  Here is a tutorial I found to be really helpful. 

I folded over the top of the flags over yarn and hot glued it down
I have a Cricut so I was able to cut out about 40 hearts in under 10 minutes.
    *What would I do without my Cricut!!
I wish I wouldn't have hot glued the hearts down, just so I could use it for other holidays. But nonetheless, I love it.

Feel free to email me with any questions on the Valentine crafts & decor! 

Thanksgiving & Christmas Decor

I've never really been much of a holiday decorator, or a home decorator either; thankfully I've had my mom's amazing eye and help to make a cozy home (apartment) to live in.

I started getting into the holiday decorating with Halloween; posted about here and here. Although we don't have a lot of people over everyday, I still love making our apartment festive for the holidays; it's something fun to come home to.

Thanksgiving is sadly one of those holidays that seems to come and go without much notice nowadays. That poor holiday gets stuck in between the month long festivities of Halloween followed by everyone ready for Christmas the day the spooky decor gets taken down.

I'd be lying if I said I go all out for Thanksgiving, but I did manage to reuse some Halloween decor and made a very little, festive, area on our front table.

Yes, I'm aware my Christmas decor can be seen in the background lol. I was all ready to set up for Christmas thinking I had no Thanksgiving decor to work with. But, I used some pumpkins and leaves from Halloween and an owl from my Christmas decorations.

Good enough :)

******
The Christmas decorations were much more fun to play with.

We bought three strands of lighted garland from Tai Pan; two garland for the front door and one for the TV set.

   PS: during the holidays, 

sign up for 

Tai Pan's email offers 

to receive great discounts on decorations!

It took us an entire night, holes in walls, a few curse words, and a trip to Home Depot to figure out how to hang garland around the door frame. I finally googled 'How To' and found the easiest way for indoor garland hanging.

You'll need:
Eye Lags
Zip Ties

We screwed in two eye lags on each of the three sides of the door.
We then, starting from the top, zip tied the garland to the eye hook.

We did cheat a bit and had some old curtain hooks we screwed in above the door to help support the weight of the garland - recommended if the garland will be up all month.

For the garland around the top of the TV set, I found it hard to keep it from slipping off of the edges, so I looped some yarn around sections of the garland and taped them down on top of the set so they weren't visible from the ground.

Decor Items:
Black lanterns: Hobby Lobby
          I love that they can be used year round
Red Wire Ribbon: Tai Pain
Balls, Jars, Nest, Owl: Tai Pan
Ornaments: Costco
Skinny stockings: Tai Pan


We weren't able to have our big Christmas tree up this year because our new couch takes up the entire space of our living room lol - can't wait to have a bigger place soon!

So, we bought a 3 foot tree from Tai Pan, put it on an ottoman and covered it with a tree skirt. The soft glowing lights are always my favorite thing to come home to after work.

Feel free to email me with any questions on my Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Christmas holiday decor!