Easy Valentines

"Love Day" as my daughter calls it, is right around the corner.  And for us this is our first year of having a class to give Valentine's to!  Now my daughter only has 8 kids in her class so the idea of making our own Valentines isn't that overwhelming.  I understand it may be a bit different if your kiddos have 25 kids in their class.  But this is a really simple project that you can get the kids working on and you probably have most of what you need already at home.  

All you need is paper or cardstock, yarn, a hole punch and pens or crayons or stickers to decorate with.

Start out by making a heart template out of paper.  Fold a piece of paper in half, cut half a heart and open it up to have a full heart...you know how to do that.

Next use the template to cut out hearts.  You will need twice as many hearts as Valentines you want to make.  I cut 16 hearts to make 8 Valentines.

I used paper I already had in my craft supplies and decided to do solid paper on one side and a print on the other side, but this isn't necessary - just use what you've got.  You could even use paper bags or wrapping paper or gift bags.  This is a great project to recycle stuff around the house!

So now that you have cut all your hearts, put two together and start punching holes.  Do not punch holes in part of the top of the hearts because this is where you want to leave it open to create your pocket for candy or other little goodies.

Cut a long piece of yarn and lace it through the first hole and make a knot so it wont go anywhere.

From here let your kids take over.  My daughter loves her lacing game and that is all this is!  

Actually, her version looks more like this...

Tie off the yarn at the end and start decorating.  

You can write the kids name's on the Valentines, decorate with stickers or glitter or anything you would like.  Fill the Valentines with goodies and you are ready for Love Day!

Failure With Enthusiam

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm - Winston Churchill

Well, it is true - I failed.  But as Mr. Churchill suggests I have not lost enthusiasm, instead I gained some knowledge and even some confidence.  So what did I fail at?  The light.  The bathroom light I recently told you about.  No, I did not burn down the house.  As a matter of fact the confidence I gained comes from the really good job I did installing the light.  It turns out it was just a bad design choice.

You see, I am not thrilled by the basic 2 or 3 bulb vanity lights.  The design just doesn't appeal to me.  So I reached outside the box by ordering this galvanized outdoor light from Lamps Plus.  




And I still love this light.  But see here is the problem.

No, I didn't lower the ceiling and cut off the top half of the room...that is the lights doing.  I mean it is obvious now.  A light bulb with a non-translucent shade aiming straight down well gives you light shining straight down.  Darn it.  And no, there is no other light in the room so it just doesn't work.

So it may go back in the box to be shipped back to Lamps Plus or we might just keep it because we really do like the light.  We shall see.  But in the mean time I made a new purchase and although it is exactly what I didn't want I have come to the conclusion that function sometimes needs to out way form.  And it doesn't hurt that I found something I actually really like.



It is almost 3 times more expensive then the first light (uggg) but it will look fabulous, especially with the other fixtures we ordered (that just came in yesterday!).  So the Campaign Triple Sconce from Restoration Hardware won out in the end.  And at the very least now I know how to install it when it arrives!