Valentine's Day is just around the corner and it is time to get some decorations up around the house. I feel a little weird putting up the hearts and such in January but V-Day is one of those holidays that doesn't get a whole month leading up to it to enjoy decorations so you gotta get 'em up early if you wanna enjoy them.


Bunting is just the cutest and being that I had two made by a friend for Halloween and Christmas, I thought I would try my hand at making my own for my "mantle".


The Cricut Magazine was the inspiration for this and I think it is adorbs, love the colors. I cut out almost all the shapes using the Tie the Knot cartridge on my Cricut...everything but the hearts. I wanted them to look a little imperfect. It's good to know that my 2nd grade heart making skills are still in tact.


The most difficult thing for me when paper crafting is layering patterns. My brain has a hard time wrapping around pairing together busy things. I tend to think in an organized structure, stripes must go with stripes, dots with dots, etc. Yes, I color inside the lines too.

Choosing the patterns for this banner almost had me in a panic, I mean take a look at what I've got going on here...dots, gingham, flowers, stripes...OH MY! But it works. Keeping the colors similar helps make the banner feel cohesive even when the patterns are a little cray-cray.


Did I mention the best thing about this l'il slice of V-Day decor was made for zero dollars? Yep, I was able to piece everything together with supplies I already had. Although it took me about an hour and half because I had to dig through all of my bins to find what I needed. My craft room needed to be put together like yesterday. But there are plans on the horizon...President's Day Weekend. Stay tuned!


I'm linking up with:

This evening I am attending a cocktail party at a girlfriend's house and thought it might be nice to bring her a hostess gift. I know...I feel so adult, long gone are the days of showing up with just a case of beer. And I am proud to say my idea was all my own! I bought an inexpensive bottle (under $10) and removed the labels by soaking the bottle in hot water.



Over Thanksgiving I brought the Tie the Knot cartridge which has an awesome monogram feature. Using my DesignStudio I welded together the hostess' initials

 Then I cut out the mongram onto white vinyl so it would stick to the wine bottle. I used the Provocraft brand and got it from Wal-Mart, cheap and easy! This was my first time cutting vinyl so I thought it would be a little harder but to my surprise it was just as easy as cutting paper. I followed the directions that came with the package of vinyl, setting my blade depth to 6 and pressure to 2. It was so easy!


After the Cricut did its' job I removed the excess vinyl and left the actual cut on the backing. Since the vinyl works like a sticker it is important to leave it on the backing until you are ready to use it. Now, Provocraft makes transfer tape that takes your cut from the backing to your project without any fuss, but I didn't feel like spending another $10 so off to Google I went to find an alternative and wouldn't you know it,YouTube user nancy10nl suggested painter's tape. Well, I had a roll of that lying on the kitchen table (no really, I did!) and it worked just like transfer tape.



 And voila! I have my very own, personalized hostess gift in under 30 minutes! I can see me making more of these for quick gifts to give.

 
 Well, off to go get ready for my party, back with more soon!

If you can't tell yet...I. Love. Glitter. Really, you can't go wrong with a little sparkle added to just about anything. So I give you two new cards using some beautiful DCWV Glitter paper, the first, a white poinsettia. How do you say "poinsettia"? I say "poin-sett-uh" but the website where I saw this glittery little number kept saying "poin-sett-ee-uh" and it bothered me just a little! How I wish I could give credit to the website where I found this but I forgot to bookmark the link, I sorry!