Love Is All Around

I commented recently to one of my daughters that my posts consist of "Here's the crafts I did with the grandkids" followed by "See how bogged down we are with the rentals". Just to prove my point, here's a craft/grandkid post which will be followed in a few days with a bogged down/rental post.

 

My life is so exciting. 

 

 We've done enough Valentine's Day themed crafts to last us for awhile. I pretty much create these from the supplies I have in the house or the things that I find on super good sales at the local craft stores. Frequently, I'm not sure when we start what the end product will be.

I found some canvases on sale recently at Walmart, and here's what we did with them:

First, we painted them the color of love black.

These two love to slather on paint an inch deep when a thin coat would do just as well.

Next we took a fake sheet of music I had in my paper supplies, which I carefully ripped around the edges, then Hailey and Makayla mod podged it to the canvas. 

I was gifted a cricut last Christmas, which Ashley kindly taught me to use when she was in town. The girls loved this contraption. I think there's going to be lots of cricut crafts in our future.

After teaching the girls how to figure out the center of the project, we stuck our vinyl letters on.

They each chose their own style of letters and wanted to add hearts. 

 

 

I think they just wanted to watch the cricut cut some more, but hey, it looks cute



Random picture: crafting is messy AND Hailey wants a picture of her new scriptures/carrying case.

Don't ask me to explain the socks.  

Remember these cute rustic boxes Stan made for me a few years ago? The ones we grew wheat grass in and used as centerpieces for our RS broadcast?

I've given this one a new life with the help of Hailey and Makayla. I had these wooden hearts, which I turned over to the girls to decorate with paint anyway they wanted while I painted the box red.  I had some pictures of that process, but I had problems with my computer and they disappeared when I downloaded them. After everything dried, I glued the hearts onto the box.

The hearts go all the way around, and the box looks spiffy on the ledge next to the front door. These boxes hold five 1 pint canning jars perfectly, and when I have a sec, I'll paint the jars white and fill them with either silk flowers or Costco flowers. So, yeah, we'll just enjoy the empty, but decorated box this year.

Finally, we did our third and last Valentine's project of the year.

It involved those three staples of crafting: the popsicle stick, the glue gun, and the empty toilet paper roll.

We glued the pertinent parts together,



painted the base pink,

and the letters red.

I bent the tp roll into a heart shape and the girls stamped 

and stamped. These will be the background for the popsicle part.

In my storage room I have a collection of frames from thrift stores, left behind renter stuff, and days gone by that I've kept, no doubt knowing I'd be framing masterpieces by future grandkids.

I found a couple of frames that actually match and were the right size, so we put things together, and found a space to hang them.

Here's Makayla's creation,

and Hailey's creation.

That's about all the love I can take. Now I'm off to clean and photograph our lovely rental.

Stay tuned!