hearts & crafts: cute shit you can make for valentine's day.

i know how some people feel about valentine's day. that it's a 'hallmark holiday', overly marketed, smarmy, not necessary and blah blah blah. clearly i don't agree, and am willing to take the extra lovin' that comes my way that day, all day. it's a holiday where one of the official colours is pink, acceptable in any and every shade, how could i not love it. yes valentine's day, i will take you in all your cheesy glory.

in preparation for this perfectly exorbitant day, i have started working on a few hearts and crafts that have made me a very happy girl. i had pinned this valentine's wreath a while back and contemplated how i was going to make it my own ever since. i liked the idea of the bunting and using felt and yarn, but wasn't sure how else i was going to pull everything together. a trip to 'michael's' later, and i had a bag of red and pink shit to play around with. this is what i came up with.

and it makes me very happy.

if you want to make one of your own, you're in luck: i have a tutorial! shout out to my assistant paulie, who helped me with some of the photographs. he seems to think he is better with the camera than i am. whatever makes him happy and gets me what i need.

how we do: valentine's day wreath

this is everything you will need. well, almost everything. once i got started, i realized i forgot to include a glue gun. 
because the only one i own is hideous and absolutely covered in glue, i chose not to take this picture over.

 once you gather your supplies, you can giddy up onto the fun stuff. i started by tying the white yarn to my wreath form, and began wrapping it around, making sure to use enough tension that the yarn stays in place, but not so much that you cut into the form. this part is the most tedious of the project, but once you get your yarn wrapped around a few times, you will get into a groove and will be done lickity split.

i wanted to have one small section of pink yarn to add some interest to the wreath, so once i finished with the white yarn, i tied it to the pink and continued on until i was finished. if you want to do blocks of colour throughout, just follow this process.

wrapped and ready to rock.

time for the details. hearts are a dead give-in for v-day, so i cut out doubles of various shapes and colours from my felt, 
making sure to have them as exact as possible. these would become my little heart pillows.

sewing is not really my forte, but this is simple enough that india could do it. 

sew both hearts together with your embroidery floss (it's thicker than thread and shows nicer) and leave an opening towards the end. stuff your cotton balls in until it's as full as you desire, and sew up the rest. ta da. easy peasy lemon squeezy. make as many of these as you see fit. they are super quick, and would be really cute for the fridge if you hot glued a magnet to the back, or a safety pin to make a brooch.

hot glue all your bits and bobs wherever you like. at this point, everything you are working with is so damn cute, 
you could close your eyes and throw it at the wreath and it would look perfect.

the goods. i am so happy with how it turned out, and after asking paul six times if he liked it, he muttered how cute it was under his breath. 
i love forcing him to say nice things to me, after all, isn't that what valentine's day is all about?

total costs: $22

total time: 1.5 hours

total # of "fucks" said due to glue gun burns: 4