I love Valentine's day. It's funny how the meaning of Valentine's day transforms as you grow older. Now with 3 kids, elementary school and preschool it's less about romance and more about getting 50+ valentine cards bought, signed and ready for the class party.
(not to mention the time and energy that goes into helping your child find that perfect valentine card that they love).
Below are some cute ideas for Valentine's day cards and the best part... they are free!
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| SquirrellyMinds, Lisa Storms, The Cottage Market, Savvy Sugar |
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| I heart nap time, Armommy |
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| Or so she says, fox printable |
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| mustache printable, Rubber Punkin, The Clumsy Crafter, love grows heart bookmark |
Below is our first Valentine's dinner after we were married. We had it in the dining room of my parents house in Park City. My brother Cavet was our waiter. My mom (who is a fabulous cook) and I prepared an amazing dinner for Steve of filet mignon w/ bearnaise sauce, roasted asparagus, pear gorgonzola salad and cooked red wine pears for dessert.
Oh.... the fancy life we used to lead. ;)
Oh.... the fancy life we used to lead. ;)
My awesome brother was only 15 when he did this. He was soooo cute and profesh!
The thought of decorating for Holidays is fun. I could spend hours looking at ideas and projects (I don't, but I could). Sometimes I even go so far as to purchase the materials to make the project.
THEN...
... between running the kids to and from school (& preschool), homework, dance, X-fit, sports, music lessons, play dates, dinner and keeping the house from looking like something that could be on an episode of 'Hoarders' by:
- washing dishes (about 3x's a day!)
-folding the mountain of clean laundry in my basement
-wiping the dried food off the table and floor from dinner the night before
-picking up the million & one tiny lego pieces that always seem to find the soft spot of my foot
-making school lunch and finding clothes for the kids to wear the next day
(in that mountain of laundry)
-sweeping and vacuuming the floors.........
...I barely find the time to take a shower and put on make-up let alone get to any "extra" projects these days.
So below is about as far as I got to decorating for Valentines day this year at our home:
from left to right:
1. (front door) pinned a burlap heart ($1.99 at Hobby Lobby) to my existing Christmas wreath, took no time and very little thought.
2. (back door) took a wreath I had in storage, I did a post on how to make this chevron burlap wreath here and just added red ribbon to the top (left over from Christmas) and pinned on a felt stuffed heart, a Valentine decoration my mom gave me 10 years ago, no joke...10 year ago! HA!
3. put these X & O blocks on the entryway table.
4. My kids hung up these foam hearts from the dollar store (along with Henry's paper jelly fish he made in Preschool that has been hanging in our dining room for a month now).
So, I guess the point of this post is no matter how much I would love to sew gold fabric hearts or cut out ombre hanging heart garlands.... it's ok to make do with what you have.
From the first year Max was born I took Valentines pictures, I either bought or made coordinating little outfits or shirts. I then made cute cards and sent them out to immediate family on both sides....this year I did not. :(
But truth be told I am not that sad. I made the very conscious decision on Saturday to not worry about it this year and I cannot tell how relieved I felt. I am a firm believer that you should only do that kind of stuff if you want to and it's fun for you and your family. When it begins to feel like a chore or creates more problems I will always bag it for a season. Next year, who knows? I may not be so busy? ;)
Anyway Happy Valentine's Day!!! Below is a list of moms/women who are not so busy, have "help", no sleep or surgically had 3 extra arms sewn to their body....
Two friends of mine who just happen to live across the street made the cutest homemade valentines.The robot valentine above was made by my friend Mary Ella. She drew the robot, took a picture of it and then uploaded it into photoshop where she colored it in and added the letters and numbers. Genius!
Above are these darling mustache (love mustaches) and lip valentines made by my friend Darcey. She brought 2 mustaches over for Max & Henry and 1 lip for Mimi. So clever! There are many tutorials on the web, above is a picture I found here at Blonde designs.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day!
the best part of Valentine's Day are the sweet delicious treats. Below are pictures of the cupcakes we made....
We made lots and lots of cupcakes this weekend. Wish I could say we gave them away, but we just ate them. ;) We did set aside some for Max's teachers. Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!
xoxo, The Barties
fabric wreath, via: MY GREENBRAE COTTAGE
paper rose wreath, via: I'M A YARNER
fabric rose wreath via: SMASHED PEAS AND CARROTS
I found some more free printables yesterday. Max and I were on the computer trying to find some "boy" valentines, he liked the robots but the pirates are still his favorite.
tip: I didn't know this so maybe you didn't either. But did you know that Costco will refill your ink cartridges for $7.99 a piece? Now I only have to spend $15 instead of $45 to refill my printer. It makes projects like this much more cost effective, which is what we all love, right.
So I am not officially back into the blog game, but I am on the search for some fun free printables for Valentine's Day. I love making them with Max for his class. Here are some I've found that I really like:
These are the valentines I printed off last year. Max really liked the pirate ones. :) They looked really cute with a heart shaped lollypop attached.
I just returned from Max's V-day class party. It was so much fun, great job party organizer, MaryElla! The kids were saying it was the best party they had ever been too. ;) For Valentine's I found these awesome free printable v-day cards for boys from Simply Handmade. I just loved them so we printed them out, added a red heart lollipop et voila! You can get the template here for these valentine's, they also have darling ones for girls.
I made the kids V-day shirts out of some fun fabric I found and used the left-overs to make this Valentine garland that currently hangs in my sun room. I like it, don't quite love it...I wanted to add some more stuff like those fabric yoyo's, my mom bought me a little gadget to make them that works brilliantly or you can go here to make them by hand.
Anyhow, fabric hearts and pieces of tied fabric will have to do for now. I think it still looks darling.
I just cut out about 10 pairs of fabric hearts in varying sizes with pinking shears, and sewed the pairs together. I then cut about 48 long thin pieces of coordinating fabric with the same scissors (pinking) and just tied them on randomly in between the hearts and connected the whole thing with a very light soft white yarn.
I really need to learn to take pictures while I am in the process of making things. :)
I just bought these images off a boutique I love on etsy called Land of Enchantment. I just love the victorian/vintage images they have. I don't know yet what I will do with them, I'm thinking of using them for my Valentine cards or making a banner with them. Hmmm, we shall see.
