Conversation Heart cookies for Valentine's Day

Off to Grandma's house for Valentine's Day (and her birthday!) 

There will be no less than 10 grandkids there to celebrate, so I made some cookies for THEM... that is, unless Grandpa doesn't get to them first!

I thought I was going to be all fancy and use and ink stamper with red gel paste coloring and stamp the words on the cookies.  Ummm... not so much.  WAY EASIER to just use a food coloring pen to write them on!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day at School

I have been making the kid's Valentines for a few years now, instead of buying them.  This year was a tad overwhelming though as both kids have *30* kids in their class.  That's 60 homemade Valentines that require multiple steps to make each one.  Good times, I know.

Using my handy new paper trimmer, I cut some red and pink cardstock.  It took five batches of Rice Krispie treats to get 30 individual hearts cut out with a heart shaped cookie cutter.  Luckily, the treats are super sticky and stuck right to the paper all by themselves.

I was also tapped to make some cookies for my son's class.  I am sure each kid noted how long it took me to make all these cookies, right?

I tried hard to find an idea that wasn't too girly for my son's Valentines.  Obviously I didn't succeed.  Let's face it, Valentine's Day in general is pretty girly. 

This project was incredibly simple, just a little time consuming.  I found a heart punch that I used to cut out the cardstock heart shapes.  Each flower has four hearts.  Then, I took a hole punch and punched a hole in the bottom of each heart.  I lined up the holes and then glued them down.  Dum-Dums were the suckers that I used, but Blow Pops would work too.  At the last minute I added some hot glue to the Dum-Dums to make sure they didn't come loose.

How cute are these?!

Valentine's Day Art

I have recently decided that I am going to start decorating my home for whatever holiday is in a given month.  What brought this on?  After I take down all the Christmas decorations, our home looks incredibly bare!  From October through December the house is full of holiday decorations and very festive.  I would love for our home to look like that all year round.

My husband would not be happy if I spent money on Valentine's decorations, so I had to put my thinking cap on and become crafty.

This is what I came up with and it cost me just $4.00!  It will have a home in the center of the mantle, along with some other things.

I bought this board at the craft store for $1.00 and I had the paint on hand.

I asked my husband to make me a frame out of his pile of scrap wood pieces, then I painted it red.

I bought some candy conversation hearts in the bulk candy section of the grocery store.  I used one pound's worth for $2.50.    While my husband I were watching a movie, I sat and hot glued these hearts onto the board.  All 318 of them.

I thought about attaching a ribbon to hang this up, but then decided that it would look best on the mantle.

I am posting this over at The Girl Creative for her link party, Just Something I Whipped Up Monday.