Sprinkling a Little Love....

After the Christmas season has past, I always want to de-clutter the house and keep the decorations (if any are even allowed) simple. This year Valentines Day was allowed to be festive. A new table runner from Ikea, a few candles in pretty containers (after christmas sales at World Market), and simple ribbon and paper garlands for the windows....

(Look at that determination!)

The first project we tackled were simple paper heart chains. The boy cut strips of 1" paper out of scraps (more on that later) and used a simple stapler to create a chain to adorn the window in his room.

The boy was quite pleased with his handy work once we draped it over his curtain rod. Great project for smaller hands and short attention spans!

(Terrible photo, but the boy's room is mid-sprucing. Reveal to come...)

Next, I worked a bit more solo and got out the trusty Silhouette. It always feels nice to dust off one of those fancy crafting machines that I just had to have! Not to mention use some of my stockpiled credit in the silhouette store. That too.

One slightly gloomy afternoon, my silhouette got a great work out. Knowing I wanted to pull together something Valentines like, I hit the paper scrap stash hard to gather materials. I sort my paper scraps by color, kinda. In a set of these drawers, I have 3 groups of colors: 1) red, pinks, oranges, & yellows 2) blues, greens, & purples 3) whites, browns, blacks, & greys. This system has worked well for me for many years now. Most importantly, it limits the amount of scraps I can have at any one point, its a pretty nifty feeling to use scraps for a project rather than cut into full sheets of paper, and, lastly, the boy knows this is the area paper is kept that he can always use and he does.

So, armed with big hunks of paper in reds and pinks, I started to cut. I went with a geometric heart and a couple other more classic heart shapes and cut until I ran out of scraps.

(kitchen table window)

 Dressing the window was very simple. A few strings of ribbon (its nice to have a healthy stash of all sorts of ribbons. seam binding and wholesale floral supplies are your friends) strung to end to end and I stapled the hearts at will.

(living room window)

I hope this has inspired you to sprinkle a little love around your home. Keep it simple. Keep it light. BUT, KEEP IT!!!

Sunshine & Bunnies, 

holly*

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Looking for  paper chain tutorial? Try this one!