Valentine's Day Cards...34 Cute Ideas

I LOVE cute Valentines.  Growing up, it was always exciting to go to the store and pick out our favorite paper Valentines.  And, then we'd make our Valentines' card holders out of paper plates and decorate them.  Oh the days!  There are SO many cute ideas now for special Valentines!  And, I couldn't resist showing a few of my favorites!  Each one is linked to its home site.  These are all just too fun!  And, so many of these are printables that you can just download and print!  Or, easily create something similar!

CHOCOLATES

valentine chocolates - via mel's kitchen cafe

rolo - via family fun

mm's - the fry family blog

kisses - me and my insanity

CANDY

love bug - the better martha

bananas - fiskars

starburst - bhg

swedish fish - dimple prints

bubble gum balls - living with three moon babies

SNACKS

fruit - unkown

goldfish - backless shirt

smores - dimple prints

goldfish - tammy mitchell

teddy grahams - spoonful

NON-FOOD/NON-CANDY

pencil - family fun

bubbles - prudent baby

arrow pencil - sweet muffin suite

cars - tip junkie

bubbles - the mother huddle

heart crayon - whipperberry

crazy straws - pinterest

heart bookmark - thirty handmade days

heart glow - kommunicated

CRAFTY

PAPER

printable 1 "love" - jones design company

printable 2 "hello darling" - how about orange

printable 3 "pastel sweet valentines" - delightful distractions

printable 4 "cute graphics" - pumpkins and posies

printable 5 "watercolor valentines" - jones design company

printable 6 "Bible verses" - happy home fairy

The Girls' Valentines

Last year, we did the cute bubble gum machine ones.  This year, I found these cute heart puzzle cards at the craft store on clearance.  They were originally $5 marked down to $2 plus 10% off!  (thank you, military discount!)  I wish I could have been a little more creative with the decorating, but I just let the girls color them and write names on them.  Love that they are little puzzles!  

I hope these ideas can be a fun collection to look at and possibly find a cute idea to use to spread some "love!" Happy "heart" day!

Christmas Cards + Valentine's Craft

I will always love the inspiration that came from this picture. 

via apartment therapy

I saw this two years ago while searching for a creative way to hang the girls' artwork.  Of course, crazy, this was before Pinterest.  The good old days where I googled everything!  But, I loved this and so we bought the Ikea system off ebay and put it in our kitchen.  The fun thing has been the other uses I've been able to use it for - hanging Christmas cards and other seasonal decorations. 

Our Christmas Cards

So, what do you do with your Christmas cards?  I know this post is a bit late, but for those of you who are like me and still had my Christmas cards up last week, maybe this can give you some ideas!

 Love this idea from Tiny Prints - take a picture of the photo Christmas cards, and use the picture as the person's contact image that pops up on the screen when calling.

 This is another favorite - I've considered doing this one, but haven't yet.  Take the cards and punch holes in the side, and use rings to connect and make them into little booklets to set out each Christmas.  Such a cute idea! Via AllenDesigns or Close2MyHeart 

What we've done the last couple years is put our Christmas cards in a basket - and, we call it our prayer basket.  The goal has been at each meal to pull down the basket and let the girls choose some cards of family and friends to pray for - and rotate through the cards.  Love this idea, if I could just make it a routine - it'd be even greater! 

Moving on to Valentine's...

I saw this cute idea on Jones Design Company.  She has a free template for hearts that are numbered till Valentine's Day. And, she created a banner with just ribbon hanging on each of her children's doors, and each day adds a heart with double stick tape to the ribbon.  And, on the heart she writes something that she loves about each child/husband.  Such a quick, yet cute idea! I'm all about simple fun!

So, using her template, I printed out the hearts, cut them out and then let the girls color them.  Pasted them to some fun paper and hung them on our little wall.  Each day, I'll have the girls tell me something that they love about our family, friends, Jesus - anything related to being loved and loving others and write it on the heart.

I love finding creative ways to do things as a family - and, yes, they must be simple!  A late Merry Christmas - and, and an early Happy Valentine's Day to you and your's!

Sweet Message + Fun & Easy Gender Reveal

Here's a sweet message from our girls.

It was quite a surprise when we found out we were expecting this little guy!  I had just gotten home from a missions trip to Ecuador and surprise, surprise - the Lord had a plan to bless us with another sweet blessing, but this time a boy!  After three girls, we just knew it was going to be another girl!  But, we are thrilled at the thought of some blue in our home!  It hasn't been the easiest of pregnancies so far, but we are blessed nonetheless with this precious life.  It is such a miracle - and, we truly give thanks to God for this new baby! The little guy's name - James Dawsey.  We've had it picked out for quite a while, as each pregnancy it got trumped with little girls' names!  He will be named after my husband's maternal Grandfather - and, even more special - his birthdate will be on Granddaddy Dawsey's birthday - June 12, 2013.  Pretty neat how God works!

So, on celebrating and "revealing the gender" to some of my husband's family that is close by, I didn't have much time to figure something fun out to do, but thought of this:

(sorry for the blurred pictures, only had my iphone to take them with!)

Bought 2 sets of pre-done cupcakes at the grocery store

Scraped the icing off the top.

Cut a little hole out and filled it with some blue icing. 

Used Betty Crocker Decorating Cupcake Icing in Sky Blue. I definitely grabbed the pink first and about walked off with it! Not used to grabbing blue! But, for a quick project, this stuff worked great.  Not quite as cheap as a tub of icing, but was perfect for this. 

Filled the hole with the icing. 

Put part of the cut-out piece back on top of the cupcake.

Re-iced the cupcake with it's original icing. 

And, done! Fun cupcakes to share for an "impromptu" gender reveal gathering!

Everyone eating their cupcakes!

There you have it! It's a boy! 

The fun part was that as we plated each of the cupcakes, the girls got to hand each cupcake out.  It let them fill included.  And, for a quick idea, it turned out pretty good.  A lot less time consuming and $ involved! But, perfect for a small, fun gathering to share the fun news! I'd always wanted to do something "fun" to reveal the gender - of course, my husband and I still wanted to find out as we were looking at the ultrasound - but, fun to share with others in a creative way!  

Some other ideas I love:

Love this idea from Sugar Derby - a little time-consuming, but super-cute and different!

This is pretty cute, too - from Catch My Party.

There are so many cute ideas out there, along with the popular "cake cutting" or opening a "box of colored balloons"!  All it takes is getting on Pinterest and seeing so many neat things!  But, if you're needing a quick and simple plan, go for the store-made cupcakes!  Fill them up, and you're done!  A lot of fun and such a blessing to celebrate a new life. 

A New Year

Well, it's a new year.  Where time goes, I sometimes wonder.  But, 2012 was filled with so many wonderful memories.  And, I am looking forward to what 2013 holds.  It will be quite an exciting year for our family!  But, as I think about my hopes and dreams for this new season of life, this new year, my focus seems to be on gratitude.

via 

via

via

via

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever." Psalm 118:1

May we all give thinks in all things - and recognize His goodness, daily!

Fall-spiration

So. Ready. For. Fall.  A little "fall-spiration" as I like to call it. 

 It's finally cooling down a bit where we live...yay!

love all things white.

love the bundle of wheat.

love the little pumpkins and little banner - cute.

love these - the color, style - so fallish.

cute print.

won't  you join me? :) 

chic outfit for fall - love the scarf/sweater.

cute pic - love the colors.

once again, love all things white. especially against the dark stairs.

adorable.

awesome colors.

super-fun craft! love these.

White Paint + Chevron Fabric = New Chair

I finally finished this chair that I posted a few months ago about here.  Very excited with how it turned out! It was a pretty wood chair prior to painting it white, but I do like the change.  One of the legs was separating from the chair, so we just attached a bracket to pull the leg back into the chair.  The foam covers up the bracket.  Worked out well!  So, when you're out thrift shopping, always imagine the possibilities in a piece of furniture! All it takes is a little sanding, paint and possibly fabric depending on the type of furniture! And, for this chair, I bought a piece of foam to cushion the seat.  

                     

 Found this piece of chevron fabric for $5/yard at our local fabric store - score!  Nice thing when you buy inexpensive fabric is that once it goes "out of style" it's a simple fix to change out this seat. Wouldn't even take a yard of material to do so. 

Welcome to our home, cute chair :)

Glazes Make Everything Better

Pinterest has brought about such a new world of sharing ideas.  Food, fashion, decor, crafts, kids stuff, you name it and you can just about find it on Pinterest.  For me, it's like a virtual magazine.  Which sadly has caused a stack of magazines to accumulate on our sofa table.  

I used to be SO excited every time my Real Simple would arrive! And now, it's not quite as thrilling as it once was.  Maybe that will return if Pinterest loses it's current thrill for me.  But, one of my favorite boards is my Food Fun Board. This morning was a rainy morning here on the coast so I figured it was a proper time to visit the board and see what yummy breakfast item the girls and I could make!  I've been meaning to make this recipe for a while and finally got to it this morning - if you're not a lemon lover, this one's not for you! But, if you like lemon, this Lemon-Zucchini Loaf with Lemon Glaze is lovely!  It's perfect for that summer crop of zucchini!  Easy and fun for kids to help with as well! 

 The recipe is from NancyCreative.  She has a great site with some amazing recipes!

 My little cook!

 Glazed perfection...

 Ready to eat!

Lemon-Zucchini Loaf with Lemon Glaze

By NancyCreative

Makes one 9×5″ loaf

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• Juice of 1 lemon (or 2 Tablespoons lemon juice)
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 cup grated zucchini (you don’t need to peel the zucchini before grating it)

Preheat oven to 35o degrees. Grease and flour a 9×5″ loaf pan; set aside.

In large bowl, blend flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In medium bowl, beat 2 eggs well, then add canola oil and sugar, and blend well. Then add the buttermilk, lemon juice, and lemon zest and blend everything well. Fold in zucchini and stir until evenly distributed in mixture.

Add this mixture to the dry ingredients in the large bowl and blend everything together, but don’t overmix.

Pour batter into prepared 9×5″ loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (if your oven tends to run hot, check the loaf after 40 minutes). Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack and cool completely. While loaf is cooling, you can make the glaze…

LEMON GLAZE

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon (or 2 Tablespoons lemon juice)

In small bowl, mix powdered sugar and lemon juice until well blended. Spoon glaze over cooled loaf. Let glaze set, then serve.

Enjoy!!