Favorite projects from Pinterest for Valentine's Day

It's no secret that I love any and all excuse to decorate for a holiday.
My favorite place to look for inspiration is, of course, Pinterest!
Follow me here.


Here are some awesome ideas I found recently for Valentine's Day.
(None of these ideas are my own.
If you wish to pin, please do so from the original source, listed below the pic.)

Valentine peek a boo treat jar
These would make darling teacher or neighbor gifts!

Yoda Best handouts
My son would love to hand these out to his friends!

Valentine pom pom garland

Cute arrows crafted from sticks

Valentine Mantel
I love the collected, eclectic quality of this mantel!

doily banner with twinkle lights
How simple and beautiful is this garland!

Beautiful mantel with neutral colors
All Valentine decor doesn't have to be bold red.
This mantel is so beautiful muted and understated.

Have you found anything inspiring to you for Valentine's Day?

Valentine pens DIY

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, so how about some heart and love projects! 

I'm going to start with these Valentine's pens!

JOY jar- New Year project

This post was originally shared on the blog,  Tatertots and Jello.

At the end of every year, I think back to all of the things we have done in the last 12 months.

2015 was a little bit of a rough one for my family.  

So as I look back, it's easy to remember all of the tough times, 

and the wonderful memories of things we experienced (and there were plenty of wonderful things) 

are a little more elusive.

No one is exempt from hard times.

But what makes them easier to bear is being grateful and focusing on the good!

So I decided to make a JOY jar for my family!

Its a way to collect good memories through out the upcoming year!

The supplies I used are:

a glass, clasping jar

armour etch click here for amazon affiliate link

vinyl 

die cut machine

I designed a simple JOY in all caps in the Silhouette sofware and then cut it with my Silhouette.

I removed the outside "stencil" part of the word and stuck it onto my jar.

I made sure to push all of the edges of the words down very well to 

keep the etch cream from settling underneath.

I brushed on the etch cream with a sponge brush according to the instructions on the bottle.  

I let it sit for 10 minutes and then washed it off with cold water.

Then I carefully peeled the vinyl off to reveal my word etched onto the jar perfectly!

I put a black piece of cardstock into the jar just so the JOY 

would be easier to read.

I used supplies from Jen's paper crafting line to decorate the jar.

I hot glued the gold clip directly to the jar to hold the bag with punched paper circles.

I folded the kraft glitter bag to make a smaller pocket, 

used the gold circle stickers for the date and added some black, 

white and gold trim around the edge of the jar.

As we experience good things in the new year, 

we'll record these things on one of the paper circles...

and put the circle with each memory into the jar.

At the end of 2016, I want to pull out all of the circles 

and read them with my family to remind us of all of the good things we experienced.

I'm hoping to make this a yearly tradition.  

So I'll put the used circles, with all of our good memories, 

back into the bag that says 2016 and store it away.

Then I'll make a new bag with the next year and clip it onto the jar.

One can never have too many reminders of JOYful experiences!!

linking up to:  Inspiration Monday, Something to Talk about, Make it Pretty Monday, 

Home Stories A-Z

DIY planner 2016

At the beginning of the year, I always vow to be better organized.

Last year I made a planner that helped a ton.

This year I decided to do something similar.

Seek Good wooden sign- One Little Word

I have participated in the One Little Word experience for the last few years.  

2015 here.

To choose a new word for 2016, I did a lot of deep thinking about 2015.

Our family had some trials- just like we all do!

But there were a lot of really good things that happened as well.

Unfortunately when I look back it's a lot easier to remember the bad stuff.  

And that's just a bummer!!

I would really like to train myself to see the GOOD things instead 

of concentrating on bad/negative things.

So this year my word is GOOD! 

It's a reminder to look for the good in any situation.

To see good when things are looking down.

To record and remember good times.

To look for the good in others and maybe even myself sometimes, 

since I'm hard on myself too.

To believe that there are a lot of really good people in this world, 

and there are plenty of good experiences to be had!!

To keep my One Little Word in mind, and hopefully on my family's mind, 

I made a sign to hang in our home.

I used the word SEEK in front of good to remind us that it takes action 

from each of us to see the GOOD!

Supplies used for the sign:

1x6 board that's about 20 inches long

white paint

black paint

top coat paint sealer

gold foil vinyl

silhouette die cutting machine

I painted the board white.  

(This is a scrap piece of wood I had in my garage.  

So it's pretty banged up, just the way I like it!)

While the paint was drying, I did the lettering in the silhouette studio software. 

I cut GOOD out with spare vinyl

and seek in gold foil vinyl.

I applied the GOOD on top of the dried white paint.  

Then I painted the entire sign black, including over the top of the GOOD vinyl.

After the black paint dried, I peeled the GOOD vinyl off to reveal the white letters underneath.

I gave the board a good sanding and then sealed it with a top coat.

I let it all dry over night.

Then I applied the gold foil seek over the top.

I love gold foil!!!

I hung the sign in a wall gallery in my living room with our family photos.

Did you choose One Little Word for the year?

I would love if you would share your word with me in the comments!

linking up to:  Link Party Palooza, Sundays at Home , Make it Pretty Monday, 

Metamorphosis Monday

DIY Dry Erase Calendar

It's the beginning of a new year- the time we all try to get more organized.

Today I have a project to help with that-

a dry erase calendar that's DIY.

this idea originally appeared (with some changes) on Tatertots and Jello

this post also contains amazon affilliate links

winter mantel

We're off to a fresh start of 2016!

The new year finally brought cold temperatures to TN.

(It was 75 degrees on Christmas day- not very Christmasy!!)

So now that it feels wintery, even if we have no snow, I decorated my mantel for Winter!

Our Holiday

Oh boy did we have an awesome holiday!

We spent lots of time in our pj's,

did a whole lot of movie watching, game playing 

and hanging out as a family.

But all good things must come to an end.

My husband went back to work today, 

and my kids go back to school Wednesday.

I think my kids and I need 2 more days to figure out how to get dressed 

in real clothes and leave the house!

This reentry into everyday life is kinda tough.  

Don't get me wrong, I'll be glad to have a few moments of peace 

without anyone fighting or needing something to eat.  For sure!

I need to ease back into blogging life as well.

So I'm starting with a recap of our Holiday!

We don't have family in the area, so we celebrate with the 5 of us.

For Christmas Eve, we opened our traditional pj's 

and then went to a drive thru Christmas light show.

On Christmas morning, I make my kids take a picture on the stairs every year.

Here is the before!

Here is the during and after.

We made lots of treats including chocolate chip cookies, caramels and peanut butter balls.

I think one of the most important things I did is journal!

During one of our many movie marathons, I grabbed my journal and wrote all about Christmas. 

I wrote down all the gifts given and received.

But most importantly, I wrote what I'd like to do different next year.

There are quite a few things I would like to change to make our next holiday even more meaningful.  So its important to me to write it down while it's still fresh on my mind.

Our older kids had youth activities to attend, so my husband and I took 

our little man out on a date to play mini golf and ride go carts.

For New Years Eve, we played Just Dance, board games and ate tons of yummy snacks!

We love these printables from Thirty Handmade Days.

We've filled one of these out for the past few years.

Happy New Year!

I'm looking forward to a great year filled with projects, 

family life and of course all things crafty!  :)