Valentine's Day Goodies...

My name is Cyndy and I’m a craftaholic… I admit it…

It started out so innocent, just a social thing, a little bling here and a little bling there, mainly just on special occasions and during the holidays. Now, I just can’t stop myself.

The week leading up to Valentine’s Day is a hard one for me to resist.. Everywhere I go there are glitter hearts, various shades of hot pink and vibrant red and craft stores filled with endless sweetheart possibilities just calling out my name. It doesn’t help matters that my judgment is clouded from the sugar high thanks to the chocolate that I had planned to use for gifts just sitting there, waiting to be tasted on my kitchen table.

Maybe something good can come from my crafting binge this week. Maybe you’ll see an idea for teacher gifts, kids class gifts, friends or a co-worker or maybe you’ll just look at all of this (like my husband does) and realize yes, Cyndy is in dire need a 12-step program. I just can’t help it as all of these crafts are very inexpensive and easy to make and nobody gets hurt. Also, these ideas can be altered for different holidays and even birthdays.

Before I forget, I want to thank my 5-year-old daughter Bella, who helped me with all of this week’s goodies. I’m not the only one in this house with an unusually strong attachment to glitter. Also, if you haven’t had a chance to take a peek and are looking for additional gift ideas, scroll down to last week’s posting titled “Blinged Out Candles” for a few more ideas for Valentine’s Day goodies.

From here on out, I will always post the instructions for projects at the end of the posting. Also, if you have an idea or project that you want to share with us, just take some pictures and send it to me with the instructions and I will post. This is “The Exchange” after all!

So let’s move along into the instructions for the above projects and gifts.

Mason Jar Goodies

I love using mason jars for everything! I buy them online by the case and use them all year and bling them out with the appropriate holiday theme. At Christmas, we put our praline pecans in them for gifts and on Halloween, I fill them with candy corn and attach a scary black spider to the top with cob webs and then use Halloween colored ribbons to finish them off. I have filled them with homemade cookies, gourmet candies and chocolate and even cute little soaps. Everyone LOVES to get them as gifts! You can do anything with them and they cost under a $1.00 per jar when purchased in bulk. By the way, my creative friend Susan Childers of www.loustationerystudio.com designed our family's cool label on the mason jar on the left.

I only use the brand name “Ball” in “smooth”, which are the only ones I can find designed for craft projects and have no lettering on them. Hobby Lobby and Michael’s sell them individually as well. I personally like to use the glass jars but they are also made in plastic as well. Consider the smaller sizes as well.

To begin, fill your jar with your goodies. The next step, adding the ribbon, can be done in two ways after you have added the lid (wait to add the top screw lid until the end); 1) Run the ribbon across the top and bottom until it meets halfway up the jar and add a label or a sticker to secure. Make sure it is secured tight so it won’t pull when you twist on the lid. 2) Run the ribbon (allow for extra) down and up the jar over the lid (not the top screw lid) and the run the ends of the ribbon up through the 2nd top screw lid and then screw the lid on and then tie your ribbon in either a bow or square knot and cut ribbon on an angle.

Flower Barrette (Valentine Cards)

To begin to make your flower barrette, you’ll want to buy your flowers in a bunch rather than individual stems to save money. It’s even better if you get them at 50% off at Hobby Lobby like I did this week. Make sure you use wire cutters and not scissors to cut the flower leaving about 1/8th of an inch on the stem to keep the flower from falling apart. If your flower falls apart, just hot glue every layer of flower back together.

Next, you’ll want to use a plain metal barrette, which you can find at craft stores in the bead and jewelry section. Add a very generous amount of hot glue to the top of the metal barrette and then quickly place the cut flower onto the barrette. The key here is to make sure that you quickly press down about an inch on both sides of what little is left of the stem to get the flower to stay flat and to secure it. It’s challenging but after a trial run, you’ll see what I mean.

Next, I just cut slits in scrapbook card stock and attached the barrette to the card and then glued on a Valentine’s Day note to make the barrette part of the Valentine.




Canvas Stamped Heart

For this project, I had Bella paint a large heart doily with a generous amount of red paint and then we simply turned the painted doily over and gently (and carefully) placed the doily onto canvas. We carefully used our fingers to press the doily into the canvass in all areas and then we steadily pulled it off.




Homemade Valentine Candy Bags

You can actually buy these card stock attachments already made at a craft store. If you want to make your own like we did all you do is use sandwich bags filled with goodies and attach cardstock attachments that you create. Take your card creation (I use scrapbook card stock) that is equal in length to the sandwich bag and fold the card over your filled sandwich bag and attach and secure with staples at the top (like the picture). It’s that easy!

I hope you find an idea here! Happy Valentine's Day!

Cheers!
Cyndy

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