Valentine's Day Archives - Yearning to Create

Love/Home/Joy Blocks

I made these LOVE blocks a few years ago, but I only unpacked them last week – just in time for Valentine’s Day! They’d been boxed up for almost two years as we lived in transition while building our new home. I was serving in Relief Society at the time and we actually ended up making these at our RS Super Saturday.

They’re very easy – the hardest part was choosing the paper (it always is!). My blocks are 3 1/2″ squares, but you can make them any size you want. Once you have your blocks, paint or stain them if you desire. Then it’s simply mod podging the paper on, and then the letters and words, and adding any embellishments. I don’t have any fancy machines to cut out letters for me, so I simply printed letters from the computer and cut them out – yup, by hand, with an exacto knife!

“Where love is, there God is also.”

Because they’re blocks, they stack nicely lots of different ways, depending on what works best in your space.

On the other side of my LOVE blocks are . . .

. . . my HOME blocks.
It’s so nice to be able to easily reverse something when it’s time for a new look!

“Where they love you most.”

Okay – I look at these now and cringe! I’ve gotten so much better at mod podging now – I never get bumps and bulges like that any more. Just might need to redo these (although they look worse here than in real life – must be the flash!). I used way too much mod podge for thin paper, and probably didn’t wait for it to dry completely between layers. And now I love the finished look you get when you press a piece of fabric over your top layer of wet mod podge and immediately pull if off again. Makes it look rather like canvas!

I also made a set of JOY blocks.

“Find Joy in the journey.”

I have Joy decorations for Christmas, but I wanted something that could be out year round to remind me about JOY. I painted these blocks black before adding the paper – matches the letters nicely.

The paper was fancy enough that I didn’t think it needed any other embellishments.

And I know you’re wondering about that fabulous background – it’s the black paper and wire mesh that will someday be hidden inside our beautiful stone fireplace!

Valentine Decorating

I love to decorate for the seasons and holidays, but I don’t do too much (compared to some people!) simply because I don’t have a quonset in my back yard to store it all in when it’s not on display.

LOVE is the TIE that {BINDS} this FAMILY TOGETHER

is my newest Valentine decor item – and I love it!!! I got it from Lazy Daizy Vinyl Lettering.

It’s still the middle of winter so I like to keep those little bits of evergreen, pine cones and berries around for filler. The pine cones came from the forests in my backyard where I grew up so they’re extra dear to me. They have sparkly silver edges because we painted the edges for my sisters wedding. I put the pine cones in her bouquet – check it out here.

On the after Christmas clearance racks I got this evergreen wreath for $0.94.

I haven’t done anything with it yet – it just hangs around looking wintery, but I made it a little more Valentinesyish by adding one of my kids hearts – they made these a few years back at Shauna’s kids craft class.

Ahh! There is my new wicker vase – you can read about it here.

Those LOVE blocks are pretty cool because on the back of the L is an H, and on the back of the V is an M. So if you get tired of LOVE, you can make it say . . . (did ya figure it out?). That was another one of Shauna’s creations from a few years ago.

These message blocks are new this year too. You can read about them here.

And I know I have a few more things too, but they’re still in boxes – not out in a quonset, but in my unfinished family room, waiting to someday have a home!!!

I think a holiday to remember the people we love is such a great idea!

Message Blocks

I unpacked these little blue blocks the other day. But today I added the Be My Valentine words, because we all know that day of love is coming up in less than a month!!!

Originally I made the blocks for a Relief Society Party.

The purpose of Relief Society being: 1) Increase Faith 2) Strengthen Family and 3) Provide Relief.

Now that I don’t need the R.S. words anymore,

I thought it would be fun to make a bunch more words for the family to be creative with.

So I printed these on cardstock and distressed the edges. I keep thinking of more I should add, so I have a list for people to add more words as they think of them.

Here are a few other loving variations . . .

But right now there is only one possible message that could be on the blocks . . .

. . . as she wrote her English Diploma exam today, with Math and Chemistry to follow next week. With them counting for 50% of her final grade, that’s a lot of pressure.

Love ya Min!!!

I think we’ll have fun with our message blocks!

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day this year was fun! I didn’t have my usual LOVE type crafts (yup, packed!) but you can sure gets lots of fun things at the dollar store – like my guys tie!!! He assured me he will only wear it on Valentine’s Day and never to church, but I think he looks very handsome in it!!!

And this year’s special menu is . . .

. . . heart shaped pepperoni on the pizza!!! I was planning to cut out the pepperoni using scissors, but my brilliant Facebook friends suggested a cookie cutter. But that presented a problem – yup, mine are packed!!! I did know where my heart shaped paper punch was, but that may be a little tricky to slide the pepperoni in!!! Luckily the kitchen still has gramma’s stuff in it, and I found the perfect size heart cookie cutter, and it worked like a charm. Thanks brilliant FB friends!!!

And this year we had . . .

. . . a Valentine Tree!!! We re-purposed our Christmas tree (because I hadn’t taken it down yet – that’s gotta be some sort of records!!!). But my guy had said he liked having it up – made a pretty night light. Gotta keep my guy happy!!! Besides, it was small and up high, not in the way at all. So my Kat and I had fun putting hearts all over it.

Celebrating holidays with fun little traditions – kids sure love it and remember it (especially if there are photos. Too bad I forgot to take a picture of the green milk for St.Patrick’s Day that greats them every year for breakfast!)