Can You Feel the Love?

Welcome to the dining room. My pig is ready to greet you again but I think I will need to see if I can't come up with a little better outfit for such an important position.


I am still working on this area. I printed the Valentine subway art from somewhere out there in blogland and then just popped it into an old frame that I painted black. There is still more that I can do here but it will have to wait for some inspiration this weekend. The block photo holder is something Hannah and Morgan and I made last year. In fact, we made LOTS of them and each one was completely different. I love how the girls can continue to come up with such creative ideas - they're SOOOO talented - ha-ha.

Here is proof of them being so creative and talented last year and also just so darn cute!


As I look at this picture I am SURE that I will be doing some tweaking in here. It really does look better in person than it does here! What is missing?





The baker's rack holds many craft projects as well as photos. The above pots are just two of the incarnations of this idea. We made them at home and we made them several times in Girl Scouts. They can be as simple or as intricate as you want. Most of the time we used stamps cut from sponges for the hearts, but as the girls got older, they began hand painting their own design. I always love a photo gift.

The "LOVE" sign was one of many holiday signs that we made one year. I simply bought inexpensive wooden letters and we glued them together and then just used scrapbook paper and embellishments to make them pretty - once again, all different.

Also on the baker's rack is one of the hurricanes we made one year. The girls decorated them with stick on hearts and then we painted them with stained glass paint. They are beautiful when they are lit!



Last year I was all about the Bingo cards. This is one I made and then my Girl Scout troop made them as well. It brought back my memories of childhood when we really did hand make Valentines for special people. The girls were so excited to dive into my piles of embellishments and made truly unique gifts for their families. I made each one that I gave with a small doilly that my mom had crocheted so they held a special meaning to us.




The hutch holds several other past year crafts - as well as the hand that all of my girls hate. They say it creeps them out. Usually it is holding something seasonal so I need to get on that.

Several of the plates were done by the kids - again with either sponge designs when they were younger or hand painted as they got older. We used glass paint and baked them when they were done and usually filled them with homemade cookies, candy or chocolate dipped pretzels as gifts.

Also on the hutch are our salt shaker photo holders. They were all over the blog last year and look so festive filled with glitter!

I told you I had a lot of things to talk about for this holiday. If you can stand it, come back again and we'll be on to another room!