We didn't decorate very much for Christmas. I couldn't get to my decorations because of all my teacher stuff in storage. Ugh! Soooo, I thought we'd bring a little cheer into our home by decorating for Valentine's Day.
I guess the whole thing cost around $10--minus printer ink.
I needed 5 black picture frames from the Dollar Tree--two 5x7 and three 8x10.
One 8x10 was for the Conversation Heart Art I made a couple of weeks ago. Another 8x10 was for a wedding photo collage I was able to print for free at CVS (thanks to coupons!) The third 8x10 was for a printable. I found a TON of cool Valentine's Day printables courtesy of this link on Pinterest. The 8x10 was found at Eighteen25. I made sure to find a frame that could be turned horizontally.
The 5x7 frames were a little weird because they had mat insets. So, technically the frame was a bit larger than 5x7. I had to trim the pictures down, so that's why the spacing is a bit off. I found the 1 Corinthians 13 subway art at The Girl Creative and the LOVE printable at Sprik Space. The Sprik Space link is amazing, by the way. It had 15 free printables in various colors! Awesome.
I bought two artificial carnations at Walmart for 94 cents each. I happened to have two empty red plastic bottles that looked pretty cool. One was from Herbal Essences shampoo and the other was from Arizona tea. I liked how they looked, even if the bottles didn't match!
Finally, I made a wreath. I'm not super stoked with how it turned out, but it's not completely hideous. I used a small floral foam circle from Dollar Tree as my form. I'd never worked with floral foam before. I didn't know just how much dust would come off of it. I'd definitely go with styrofoam if I had to do over.
I started by tying a knot with the yarn, and then wrapped it completely. It was far from perfect--I tried to keep it as tight as possible, but I still had some spaces. I ended up going over the wreath again a few times to add a little depth. The third picture is of the back--thank goodness that part isn't visible!
I cut a piece of black and white polka dot ribbon and placed it around the top of the wreath. I put a dab of tacky glue near the top of the ribbon and held it together for a couple of minutes. I didn't glue it all the way at the top because I wanted to cut a little slit in the ribbon to hang the wreath on a nail.
I ended up adding a black flower for decoration. The flower is actually a hair elastic/pin. I just stuck it through the yarn and will remove it before I store the wreath.
So that's my Valentine's Day mantel! I hope to change it out each month. I'm going to put all my printables by month in an expanding file and reuse the frames. I'll try a different wreath approach next time. A ribbon wreath would be fun!
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