Tutorial: pocket valentines

I was at Michaels with my sister a few weeks ago.
(Something I don't usually get to do so that was awesome! :) :) Thanks for coming to Logan to play with me Annie Carie!)
While we were there we found some cute scrapbook paper that looked like stamps.

You can't beat 25 cents so I figured I could cut each one out and make them into valentines. They ended up being pretty small so I revisited a past project and made pocket valentines again! 

The idea is to make the tiny valentine be bigger, and cuter, by sewing a heart pocket to a piece of card-stock for the tiny card to fit into.

1. First I cut the paper into smaller pieces with postage stamp scissors.
2. Then I used spray adhesive to attach book paper to the card-stock for a vintage look ( If you want simplicity you don't have to do this part.)
3. Then I cut the card-stock into 4x5 in pieces. (I didn't actually measure so I'm not sure the exact size.)
4. After that I cut out a bunch of hearts from pink paper. (Regular weight, not card-stock.)
5. Then I laid the heart onto the card-stock piece, sandwiched the tiny valentine in-between the two (but peeking out a bit), and sewed a straight stitch around the valentine to make the pocket the right size. (Another way to do this is to trace the outline of the tiny valentine onto the heart, and follow the lines on with your sewing machine. Erase all pencil marks when you're finished.)

 You're done! Aren't they adorable?!! Kids will want to take it out of the pocket and put it back in over and over! Enjoy!

(This post in linked up in these link parties! )

Valentine for my love

This is the valentine I made for my husband. He really loved it. It was fun thinking of creative and silly things to put in it. what did you do for your valentine? :)

Tutorial: masking tape flag cupcake topper

Hi there! Today I am sharing a really great craft to do with kids, masking tape cupcake flags! We all had a blast making them; my daughter made a valentine flag & I made a striped one. I think hers is better. :) This has to be the easiest craft tutorial I have posted so far. These are super cheap too!  Keep reading for a step by step how to.

1.  Materials: masking tape, sucker sticks, permanent marker, and scissors.
2. Put tape onto the stick and cut a V shape.
3. Decorate with permanent marker.
4. Make more!

 & that's it!  You're done! Super easy!

 My 6 year old daughter has been asking about putting up Valentines stuff ever since Christmas afternoon. So we took down Christmas yesterday. :( This is early for us to put away our Christmas stuff. Usually we leave up our main tree and decorate the dining room tree with Valentines.  My husband and I sang and played Christmas songs on the stereo while we put everything away. I am still making Christmas crafts though. I am making a little glitter village.
I am excited about the future and happy to see my walls again even if they feel a bit naked.  I have a Valentine tree up in my living room and I'll have to post photos of that soon. :)  We're always celebrating something at our house. :)

Crafting with Delia from Delia Creates : Valentine chocolate box

On Tuesday I got together with Delia from Delia Creates and did valentine crafts! We first met through blogging. I found her blog about a year ago and after recognizing a location in her photos I learned she lived in Logan too! We exchanged emails and I eventually invited her to my Halloween party. It was really fun finally meeting her in person. This is only the third time we have gotten together (If you count her coming over to pick up a dish she left at my house).  :)  I am sometimes intimidated by her complete and total awesomeness! Not because she herself is intimidating, quite the contrary, she is so nice, sweet, and sincere!  She is super creative and fun to be around! :) Thanks Delia for a really fun afternoon! :)

When I arrived at Delia's house she invited me in and on the table was a lovely collection of lace and fabric all ready for us to use.  The photo above is actually of some lace at my house because I was not thinking and forgot to bring my camera. :(  It was so fun looking around her house and seeing a few of her lovely creations in person.
Like her neat magnetic Family Home Evening board.   Such a fun way to organize family night.

....and her vintage book paper wreath!  It looks so pretty hanging in her living room. I want one too now!

For our craft Delia showed us how to re-cover chocolate boxes with fabric. We then embellished them with lace and other findings. I brought my youngest and oldest with me. My baby played blocks on the floor (sometimes) and my daughter decorated her own box, check it out here,  When she finished her own we finished mine together. We decided to give it to dad. He loved that.
Here's how ours turned out.
 
Delia's boxes turned out so lovely. One had red lace on top of pink fabric, another had purple fabric and ruffled lace. I wish I had brought my camera!
Delia, I'll have to have you over to my house soon, and maybe I could bake us a treat! Ooh ooh what if we have craft night every month, and maybe invite a few friends? Wouldn't that be fun?! Just an idea.
Thanks again Delia for having us! We had so much fun!

Valentine salt dough cookies

I thought it would be fun to re-share the salt dough cookies I made last year. They are so festive and pretty! These are really easy to make, just use the same recipe as the snowflake cookies, but omit the food coloring so they look like sugar cookies! I also didn't add glitter to some of them and I like how they turned out. What do you think?. I glued ribbon loops to the back of some and gave them as a gift to my friend to put on her valentine tree. She loved it. :)

I tried some new techniques when I made the cookie below.  First I painted a red heart with craft paint. Then I decorated on top of the red paint with white puff paint and glittered the wet puff paint. It ended up looking awesome!

 

 I have them hanging on my Valentines tree and they look really cute! 

(P.S. The glitter cupid cost me 25 cents at an after Christmas sale! I also got my pink ball ornaments after Christmas at Walmart. A box of 25 ornaments for $3, you can't beat that!)

These look so pretty all packaged up in a pink origami box made from 12x12 pieces of card stock.

If you haven't tried to make these yet go and try it. They are so fun and addictive!

If you don't have mountains of 12x12 scrapbook paper you can cut two 12x12 pieces out of any paper grocery bag. :)  Like the one pictured below. This is a very cost effective and earth friendly form of packaging. :)

You might have noticed that these boxes have shallow lids. I usually make lids that totally cover the bottom box. It was kind of hard to figure out.  Once I have it simplified I'll give a tutorial on that. :) 

Valentine chocolate sandwich cookies

I made Valentine treats today. I first tasted chocolate sandwich cookies when a neighbor boy, who was in my husbands Sunday school class, brought them over as a thank you. I thought they were the cutest thing ever! Then I tasted one and was blown away at the light fluffiness of the cookie and the super yummy frosting. I immediately started daydreaming that our neighbors would continue bringing cookies over and that they would always bring these specific ones. Well I eventually had to get the recipe from the neighbors and was pleasantly surprised with the simplicity of it! Here it is-

*******************************************************************************

cookies-
2 18.25 oz.packages of chocolate cake mix
4 eggs
1 cup of oil

frosting-
1 8 oz. pack of cream cheese (softened)
4th cup of butter (softened)
1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

• Preheat the oven to 350
• Roll out 1 inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on un-greased cookie sheet. (Put cocoa powder on hands to prevent sticky mess.) Makes 6 dozen cookies.
  
• Bake each sheet 8 to 10 min.
• Let cool on cookie sheet 5 min. before removing, cookies will flatten as they cool.
• let cool till room temp. then frost half the cookies and top with other half.

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Super easy!

I, however, made it harder than it should have been by making the cake mix from scratch. What an adventure I had last night!
First I omitted the butter thinking it was not needed since there isn't any butter in the recipe. My first three sheets of cookies turned out like crumbly grainy biscuits. But in normal chocolate cake mix there is shortening, so I really messed things up. Then I added some butter and the rest turned out like crumbly slightly less grainy biscuit/cookies.

I felt disappointed yet determined not let my time and energy be spent in vain. So I proceeded to crumble up the first three sheets of already cooked cookies into the mixing bowl with more eggs (because the original eggs were already cooked) and even more butter. The cookie dough changed dramatically from the first batch of dough and I was unsure if this attempt at rescuing these cookies would work. It was very wet and gooey-- almost the texture of brownie mix. It did roll into balls though when I had cocoa powder on my hands, so I put them in the oven and waited to see the results of my experiment. To my excitement, relief and surprise they turned out GREAT! They flattened like they were supposed to and they were so light and fluffy like I remembered from the neighbors batch. Hooray! The fruits of my labors are so sweet! And I am super happy! What a night!

MORAL: Do NOT to omit the butter when making these from scratch. Maybe never make them from scratch at all! :) Who knows, It all depends on how brave I feel next time I bake.

Tutorial : Candy filled valentine doily

I have had this idea in my head for a long time now and I am so excited to share it with you!  Seriously, can you get any cuter than valentine doilies laced up and filled with candy? Adding a heart window flap just magnifies the cuteness!  Plus the lacing part is super easy and fun for kids to do.

 

Materials

• red card stock
• hole punch
• large scallop scissors
• yarn
• candy
• cellophane (or recycled plastic bag)
• x-acto knife
• tape

1.  The first thing you need to do is make two doilies. (See my doily tutorial here... Also, instead of punching two rows of holes I only did one).

2.  Next you need to cut a little heart window out of one of the doilies. I made a heart template and traced it in the middle. following the tracing lines, I cut only half the heart with an x-acto knife. (This part is not intended for kids.). Then I folded it over to make a cute little flap that finishes the other half of the heart shape. (Remember to erase any pencil marks when finished.)

 

3.  Now you need to put plastic in the window. (You can use cellophane but I just cut out a piece of plastic from an old bag I had on hand.) Tape the plastic to the back of the doily to cover the hole.

4.  Grab some yarn, lace it up three fourths of the way, and fill with candy. Finish lacing and tie a pretty bow at the top.

Ta-da you're done!
Enjoy your sweet little valentines!

{I am linking up at these link parties}

cupcakes

We made Valentine cupcakes today! I have always loved flag cupcake toppers.

 

I may be weird but I refuse to buy them because they're just tooth pics with paper on them, yet I never have managed to make them to my liking till yesterday.

All we did was take sticker mailing labels and fold them in half over a tooth pick and decorate them with a Sharpie. (OK these probably aren't tooth picks.. they're...what the heck are these anyway?) What fun! You could print images or text on them if you don't want to use a marker. I love it when inspiration strikes! Next time I think I'll cut them into triangles just for fun!!

  

Pocket valentines

A while ago I bought these super cute scratch and sniff valentines for my daughter at the Dollar Tree. When I opened the box I was very disappointed to find that each one was only 1.5 x 2 inches big.

I still wanted to use them but wasn't sure how to fix the size problem. They're really just so small!Aren't they just so adorable! Finally a few days a go I thought of a great way to make them a bit more exciting.I sewed paper heart pockets for each valentine.The heart pocket makes the valentines bigger, adds a hand made touch, not to mention it's super cute! What fun!! What 4 year old wouldn't love putting it in and taking it out of the pocket repeatedly! I do!The hearts are made from lunch bags and the back is card stock.

My daughter was so happy with how they turned out! I also made cards for both my kids' Sunday school teachers as well, I'll have to post those tomorrow.

Heart snack

Happy Hearts are finding their way into everything we do over here. I just used a heart shaped cookie cutter to add a valentine twist to our sandwich lunch today.

I made chocolates

I had lots of fun making valentine chocolates! But I have to confess something, I am super addicted to making home made treats and sweets, yet I am a little bit of a selfish cook. I need to figure out a way to make them and not eat them all. I need to let some of them go to other homes, like neighbors or family. I am super obsessed with cute packaging, like here , here , and here, so I am determined and excited to give away at least some these candies to our neighbors! I'll take photos of the packaging when I get them made. If anyone knows where I can find a free download template for making little boxes let me know!

Surprise Shop update and digital works debut

Hello Everyone, I thought it would be fun to surprise you all with an update to my little shop! And Let you know that it features two of my brand new digital art prints.

"A Valentine balloon" digital art print

"Thinking" digital art print

I have more in the works and will continually make more! The thing is, for Christmas this last year my husband received a scanner. I started to play around with it and created these pretty images. I fell in love with digitally coloring my sketches. I'm very excited and hope you enjoy them!

garland of hearts

I just made this new garland out of what I had on hand and I love it! I bought the red pigment ink at the dollar store so i guess that wasn't on hand. That old book paper is really a staple at my house now! Take a look at what else I made with it.

These are the valentines that I made for my son's nursery teachers. I love the layers and the way they open at the corner. I also adore the winged envelopes they go in. Hope you have a happy v-day, we're off to a neighbors valentine exchange party!