Simple Valentine's Mantel

I don't do much for Valentine's Day, although I think I have more going on this year than last. When I put up the faux mantel for Christmas, I intended to take it back down. But when it was sitting there bare after taking the stockings off I just decided I'd decorate it for all the holidays. So here's Valentine's.

The XOXO bunting and the tiny dictionary bunting (which I am just gaga over!), were super easy and it only took me about 30 minutes to do both. Here's a close up of the ADORABLE dictionary bunting. Inspiration from here.

OMG I love it!!! It is soooo cute! When Valentine's is over I think I'll pin it up somewhere in my girly girl Emma's room. And this was so easy to make. I have a couple of old books (they're old encyclopedias, but let's just call them dictionaries for fun) that I use for projects like this. I just free handed the bunting shape with my scissors, layered some scrapbook paper hearts, and then fished out some white buttons from my sewing box. I didn't even bother gluing the hearts or buttons on, I just sewed them right through and that's holding the whole thing together. Plus the stitches are my favorite part!

The XOXO bunting is pretty self explanatory. I free handed all the shapes, punched some holes and strung it up. (I really love the shadows it makes!) And I just did a simple print out of the classic Beatles lyric, "All You Need Is Love." If you're curious, I use Microsoft Publisher for things like this. I don't know many people who use this, but its easy and I'm familiar with it. Those tissue pom-poms are from a cousin's wedding shower. I made about 30 of them. And yes, I kept every. single. one. They come in handy, and when I'm not using them, they just hang from the ceiling in Emma's room.

The finial thing and the turquoise bowl are some of those things that migrate around my house year round. I think they finish the mantel out nicely. And did I mention, this whole project was free! I had everything on hand. Love it when that happens!

I know we'll only enjoy it for the rest of this week, but it's one of those things that makes me smile when I walk past. And I do think my family appreciates the little bit of cheeriness in that corner. That's what I tell myself anyway. :)

So what about you? Do you decorate for Valentine's or just let it pass by? Are you doing anything for St. Paddy's Day? I have something I made last year that I'll be putting back out. That is if it survived being packed in my craft closet all year. We'll see . . .

P.S.: I've linked up to Katie's Lovely Crafts Linky Party over at Bower Power. Check it out!

2013 Goals: Part 1

You may be thinking, "2013 Goals? Isn't it February already?" Yeah, I'm a little behind. But only if you're sticking to the conventional idea of making resolutions at the beginning of the year. And we don't have to do that! Yay! So here we go:

Goals for my home:

#1 - Finish it! I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we've lived in our house for almost TEN YEARS. We've done a ton of work, but there are so many finishing touches that need to be done that it drives me crazy! And when I say finish it, I don't mean decorating, I mean I need baseboards and thresholds in places, plus a few other small things. Don't get me wrong, my house doesn't look like an unfinished mess - in fact most people don't even notice until I point it out (which I can't NOT do - it's an illness).  The goal here comes down to me choosing ONE thing to finish every week. I'll make a list and keep you updated.

#2 - My dining room. 'Nough said.

#3 - The girls' rooms. I have some ideas for redecorating my girls' bedrooms, I just need to make a couple of mood boards.

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#4 - Sell this house. Yep, you heard that right. And you may think the other goals seem pointless now, but as long as we live here I'll be making it as comfortable (and pretty) as possible. We want to sell this house and buy something with more space, inside and out. This has been a goal of ours for a couple of years now, but we haven't found anything in our area that makes us want to take that leap. We live in a VERY small town and there's not that much for sale. So we just keep looking. The good news for this blog is it'll be a whole new place to decorate (and probably renovate)!

I'm worn out just typing all this down. I'll be back tomorrow to share my simple Valentine's mantel and later this week I'll share my blog goals (that would the Part 2). Please tell me I'm not the only one with these kind of unfinished projects? I'm telling ya, I think they multiply!