Recent Craftiness

Alright, so really, by "recent craftiness" I mean Valentine crafts. I'll go in order from least favorite to my favorite.

First up, my Valentine lanterns. These are based off of the same idea as the Halloween lanterns I did back in October {seen in this post with instructions taken from Our Best Bites}.Originally, they started out hot pink, but that shade of pink just didn't go well with my other decorations and the beauty of mod podge is that you just put your jar in hot water and everything peels right off and you can start anew.

See? I didn't even like it enough to bother taking a decent "before" picture!

I like them... but I still think they're missing something. I love the vinyl lettering {thanks to Jenn for doing it for me!} and I love the red. I'm not wild about the hearts, but at that point I had made the effort to cut them all out of another sheet of tissue paper that I wasn't going to waste all that work, plus they're kinda subtle. I don't know... maybe some raffia or something tied around the top?

Next up, the Hug-N-Kisses blocks. I made these with a ladies craft group from church. This is how they're supposed to look:
LOVE the font for the vinyl lettering. So I got my blocks all made and it just seemed like they were missing... something {apparently I have that problem a lot}. So I roughed up the edges a little and swapped out the "N" for an "&" and then I couldn't decide where to put the little heart {from inside the "i" in "Kisses"} but I finally found a spot I liked - tucked inside the "U". {Click on the picture to better see the distressing on the edges.} As a final touch, rather than centering the blocks, like in the first picture, I arranged them as seen below and added the white foam glitter hearts {four pack found in the dollar section at Target}. I think the hearts help complete this little decoration and really make it my own.And, of course, it looks even better next to a full jar of red, pink and white M&M's!
Final project: Valentine Rosette wreath
Yet another idea I stole from Our Best Bites {get the tutorial here}! It was fairly cheap and easy, but time consuming! Just a foam wreath from the craft store, felt and a glue gun are needed and felt is pretty cheap. I went with white and three different shades of pink. Each and every one of those rosettes had to be cut out in a spiral shape and then rolled up. It's a good project to do while you're watching a movie. Turn on your favorite chick flick and start cutting and rolling! Although... it may take two chick flicks. Originally, I was just going to do enough rosettes to cover the outside and along the inside, but leave the back bare, but once I got gluing the dang things on, there was so little left in the back that I just decided to make some more and cover the whole thing.
Sean snapped this picture while I was napping on the couch. I didn't even know the little booger had gotten ahold of it! This was mid-way through - before I decided to cover the whole wreath.

A close-up of all the rosettes. Don't ask how many there are.

And here's the finished product! I have to say, gluing them into place was a lot harder than it looks. I took great care to have repeat colors touch only occasionally and even with four different colors this was difficult task!

That's it for now! I don't decorate for St. Patrick's Day, but I'm realizing I have very few Spring/Easter decorations so hopefully there are more cute crafts in my {very} near future! Feel free to share some ideas or links to craft blogs in the comments.