Hello! Hope your week is going great for you, so far.
Monday I finally finished up my little Valentine's Day wreath. The pillows have been done since January, because I always like my pillows to do double-duty so I can just flip them around when necessary. It really saves time and space. Less to change out and pack away! I made them the very same way I make all my pillow covers. You can see a quick tutorial here of the original pillow covers I made for Fall and the flip side of these covers for my winter/January decor right here.
I used muslin as the material for the front and back cover, and a red and white ticking for the front decorative panel, and sewed that to the muslin. Then I used some creamy white chenille fabric and some burgundy wool felt for the hearts. I just cut those out and placed them where I liked them, pinned them to the ticking and sewed them on. I was then able to sew the two panels together, leaving a good enough sized opening at the bottom for my pillow to be slipped in. While it was still inside out, I folded the hem of the opening over and pinned it and sewed that to make a good sturdy hem for the closure. I turned it right side out, and hand-sewed the twine on for the tie closures. All this is detailed in my winter pillow cover post.
Don't you just LOVE these flowers?! I found a tutorial of these on that Pinning site...you know the one. Here's the link to her blog Ruffles and Stuff, where I learned all about making them. It is a CUTE little blog!
Anyway, I picked through my fabric stash (I love fabric and buy a yard or two when it's on sale whenever I get around to getting to a fabric store and quite have the impressive
I decided on what reminded me of sweetness, romance, love, and Valentine's Day!
I had been milling over what type of wreath to make for the front door for a while, and I was actually just going to buy one of those ready made store-bought hearts with all the sparkly red tinsel hearts on it and froo-froo it up, but my husband didn't really like that idea. Truth. He had an opinion about the Valentine's wreath.
So, I had this grapevine heart wreath for ever and I just decided to pull off the out of date stuff that was on it and use it for my wreath. Kinda perfect, right?
I started to just pull the old dried flowers off, the hot glue was so old it just popped off without damaging anything. I know it might seem pack-ratty to keep everything, but I have craft closets, and I don't really have that much. Just stuff that will save me a ton of money if I don't have to re-buy it. Do you know how much grapevine wreaths can be? I have a bundle of them that I got at a yardsale for next to nothing, HUGE ones, and all I had to do was take the old decorations off.
Ok, back to the dissasembly...and enter my "helper". She is just about the most curious cat there is. Loves the sound of tape being torn from anything and will climb a mountain to get it. Completely disarms you of your needle and thread if you are trying to so much as sew a button (like tonight) to eat your thread, and of course, she must try the grapevine stems of your wreath if you happen to be working on the floor. Not that a table would stop her.
Oh, yeah...she rolled all in the discarded dried stuff, too. And tried to eat it. And attack it. She's pretty spunky for a 13 year old.
I'm sorry I don't have any assembly pictures, but I can walk you through it. It's pretty self explanatory. I definitely wanted to use the flowers I made, and wanted to incorporate the word love somehow. I found a box of red glittery chipboard letters that I had. They were the perfect size. I would have loved to use that new burlap garland I just bought , but I couldn't figure out how to incorporate it. Plus, I wanted this to be light and airy. I had a bunch of tulle I bough on sale just before Christmas so I cut a long strip of that and weaved it through the wreath. It seemed made for something to be weaved right through there, so that worked out, too.
Then I tried my letters out until I found the right spot for them and hot glued those down.
Next, I started laying the flowers around until they looked right. I had more white ones than anything else and one teeny tiny flower, so I placed them by the "L" to use all the flowers and ballance the look. When I decided on the placement, I just hot glued all of those down, as well.
I really like it! It's not what I was thinking of at first, but I don't think I really knew what I was thinking of. It matches my pillows and I finally used a wreath I've had for years that I didn't know what to do with. The best part about all of these projects...it was all free!!
I truly hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day. If you're a couple, do something nice together. It doesn't have to cost a thing! Make dinner together from a new recipe topped off with a special dessert you both made, and watch a romantic movie at home. One of our favorites is "The Notebook". If you are parents, take your kids to the movie or have a movie night at home. Look online for Valentine themed party ideas and play some games and make treats with your kids. If you're single, get together with some of your single friends and go to dinner, or a winery, or have a dinner party at home. Watch a goofy, funny, sappy romantic movie like "Date Night" and laugh together. Or treat yourself to an evening of shopping or a trip to the salon. A quiet night at home curled up with a book with the ringer and television off or a glass of wine and an old black and white like "Casablanca" is a great way to treat yourself. No matter what you decide to do, treat yourself, and others well, and spread some Love!
With Love,
Nanette
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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