Valentine's Day 2011

We're not the Hallmark variety of Valentine's Day celebrators -- but we do take every opportunity to make family memories and celebrate life and love and all that good stuff that makes the years slip by more sweetly. This year, I purchased a few "little somethings" for each child from the dollar store (no toys!) and wrapped them with brown paper and yarn. In our stamp stash we had a cute "I Love You" stamp, but I didn't have a heart stamp that I thought should accompany the words.

Soooo, I made one with a bit of cardboard and one of these foam shapes which have been kicking around for about a decade:

Now I want to make all kinds of them!!!! But that will have to wait.

For DH, I went a little cheesy and made a love message board . . .

As I've seen several places online, I painted a cookie sheet black, then distressed it a bit, added some ribbon, some scrapbook paper, a little decal -- and voila! The magnetic words were in the Valentine's section at the dollar store and inspired the little project:

The extra words are stored on the back:

There's one glaring one that will be discarded -- did you see it?????



Oh, and I also made him this little card -- cuz those card companies ain't gettin' my cash:

We have a tradition of celebrating Valentine's Day with home-made, heart-shaped pizzas. I have to say, this year they turned out beautifully!  ;-) Seriously -- the children especially loved them, and though they were the size of their heads, only the boys had a bit of a hard time finishing them!

Of course, part of the fun of preparing for the meal is setting the table. Because pizza is pretty casual, I didn't want to get too fancy -- but I did want it to be elegant. I decided I wanted white candlestick holders to match the dishes -- but I didn't have any and couldn't find any at Value Village. So -- I painted these:

DH thought it a little scandalous that I dared to paint glass Party Lite holders -- but come on -- they're probably 15 years old, and let's face it -- they're pretty ho-hum. Besides -- I'm sure the paint will scrape/wash off ;) The tall ones were wood and I did a lousy job of spray painting them -- but they served my purpose well enough. I was quite pleased with how they looked on the table, if not on close examination.

Now here was my stroke of genius . . . DH had picked up a white ceiling medalion from freecycle a few weeks ago, and it still sat in the living room where he'd put it upon his return home. Well, I glanced at it and decided it would make an awesome base for a centerpiece! Do you not agree????

AND, may I point out, DO notice how the beading around the medallion complements the beading around the painted glass candle holders!!!!

How serendipitous is that?????? (Remember -- don't look too closely at the paint job on the candle holder!)

And I added some red tassles to the vase -- just cuz I had them and wanted to use them and I didn't quite know how to do so ;)

Here are some other little details of the table setting . . . (I had to go with fake flowers because I couldn't bring myself to pay the jacked-up prices for fresh!):

So -- that's another memory made:) The surprise of the evening was that gameboy-DS12 gave his little brother FOUR of his Wii games as an expression of his love! Wow! We need to read 1 Corinthians 13 more often! (We read it this morning during devotions and were all convicted about the ways we fail to show love on a regular basis.) DS4 didn't clue in that they were DS12's actual games -- he kept saying, "Hey -- I have the same game as you!" 'Twas thrilling to see DS12 coaching him in the games after dinner . . .

Do you have any special Valentine's traditions? Even if you don't buy into the Hallmark money-grab, do you celebrate Love in any special way?

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