#42 & #43 – Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day!  We were excited to do one fun, simple project that, I think, has a big fun impact on feeling festive after the Christmas let down.  After we took down the Christmas decorations, I felt like our house looked  like a man who just shaved off his life long mustache….weird, bare, boring, and  in need of a some color.  Well, getting a little holiday spirit back up as well as a much coveted piece to the living room decor puzzle has really done the trick.  First for the Valentine’s Day project, a simple felt heart garland.  I was inspired by this pin:

Pin #42 Heart Garland Tutorial. I did not even click to the website for a tutorial, I just used this picture for inspiration to a really easy project.

I made mine even simpler with free hand cut felt hearts and fishing line.  I recommend making several stitches in each heart vs. one  or two big ones per heart. We ended up doing this twice with this lesson learned.  I cut all the hearts out and Luca helped string them one afternoon by choosing the pattern and it was his idea to layer more than one heart at a time.  He also had fun telling me “Mom, do you know what?  Our real hearts in our bodies don’t look like this, they look like gross blobs!!”  Yes Luca, they do.

We hung the garland on our mantel as well as our window in the breakfast nook area. (We got a little crazy while we were stringing our hearts and realized we had a garland long enough for two locations).

Before I show you the mantel, I’ll include the ‘original’ pin of this HIGHLY coveted mirror from Ballard Designs.  I’ve had my eye on it for a while, but it wasn’t until the post Christmas decor/shaved mustache realization that I really decided to just order it already!!!   I had this vision of posting grand ‘reveals’ of each room that we’ve been making over since moving in (so far 80% done with the boys’ room, laundry room, kids’ bathroom and living room).  But I think that I’ll start to tease a few little gems like this mirror ahead of time.

Pin #43 iny tiny picture of the GIANT mirror!

Our mirror from Ballard Designs and heart garland

Now, one thing about this house is that the previous owners did a wonderful job renovating the kitchen and other areas.  However, it is quite clear they got a screaming deal on ‘back galaxy ‘ granite.  It is EVERYWHERE!  In the kitchen, the kids’ bathroom, this fireplace and the little power room that was probably previously a closet.  Everywhere!  I’m not a huge fan of it here, but we’ll be designing around it for now.  It is neat how it reflects straight out our huge front window so in the summer time you can actually see the sunset in the reflection.