valentine's day decor

i wasn't very motivated to take our christmas decorations down this year. in fact, i was still enjoying them. until today. i took them all down...except for the mistletoe...we decided to leave that up for another day or two. seriously...who doesn't love another excuse to kiss? i'm sure we will totally gross our kids out when they are teenagers. oh well. anyway...

we aren't big celebrators of valentine's day around here. we always exchange cards and maybe we are extra lovey-dovey that day, but we've never made it a point to have big celebrations. we didn't even have any decorations for valentine's day...until today.

when i was a kid, we had a valentine box (a shoebox my mom covered in red polka dot wrapping paper and cut a slit in the top of), and a box full of valentine making supplies, and the weeks before valentine's day were spent using way too much glue to create cards for each member of the family and then slipping the cards into the shoebox. after dinner on valentine's day, the shoebox was opened and valentine's were passed out. my dad always slipped a store-bought card in for each of us, and my mom always made some kind of special little goodie bag. it was a special tradition that we plan to continue with our family.

taking down the christmas decorations today had me feeling a bit blue...so i dug into my stash and crafted an assortment of decorations to brighten our home. i was fortunate to have my hubby home for part of the day, and a babe who took a {rare} long nap.

first, i made this heart garland to hang above a window. i cut hearts out of three different colors of felt and sewed through them with embroidery thread. simple.

i made another window garland. i think i saw this idea somewhere a while ago, but i honestly don't remember where it was...i don't remember it being a valentine's day idea, but i am using it as one. i had a packet of thin, red binding left over from some other project, so i used that. i took some medium sized paper doilies, folded them in half, and simply glued them to the binding. i let them dry and hung it up. it turned out to be so cute. (this photo definitely doesn't do it justice).

there was one more {bigger} valentine craft/decoration i created today. this next photo is a hint. i will post the completed project tomorrow. stay tuned!