Valentine's Garland

If you haven't noticed, I'm into free or cheap inexpensive craft ideas. If I wasn't, I'd be spending wayyy too much money on doing crafty things. This particular idea cost me nothing. And lots of other creative people probably thought of this before me, but when I was trying to pack up the last of the Christmas stuff last night (I'm a little behind, I know) I had an idea to use up the tons of leftover candy canes we had laying around.

pile o' candy canes

If two candy canes are side by side, they naturally form a heart (or one backwards "r" and one forwards "r," but that's really not what I was going for with Valentine's day coming up). So I decided to make a garland for the mantle with candy cane hearts! Like I said before, novel idea to me, but I imagine it's probably been done before. So I got out the hot glue gun I got for Christmas (yay!) and assembled hearts.

  heart assembling - quick and easy, just 2 dots of glue

I suppose this is my attempt at being artsy after I finished assembling 

the canes - note: in case this wasn't obvious, leave the wrappers on. 

Nobody wants to deal with a sticky mess o' candy canes!

Next came the hanging...er...assembling and putting up the garland. I would love to say this part was super easy and took no time at all, but I don't think I'm very good at knots. So it wasn't super quick and easy, but it wasn't terrible either. I just used thread because I didn't want to see a big string. Using cute ribbon might be easier to tie and deal with, but I didn't have any cute valentiney ribbon on hand. I basically just looped the thread around the inside point and tied a knot so they wouldn't all slide down to the center. I ended up having the garland come back up to the mantle in the center because those candy cane hearts were surprisingly heavy and I was a little worried about my thread. I used clear packing tape to hold the tape up, so fancy, I know. Here's the finished product!

Please forgive my bare mantel, still transitioning after Christmas

(read - I don't really remember what I had on the mantle 

before Christmas, so I'm having trouble redecorating it)

Really, the possibilities are endless with the candy cane heart thing. One year I made cupcakes with mini candy cane hearts on top (definitely can't take credit for that idea, it was in Real Simple - I can't get enough of that magazine!). They were really cute, you unwrap them and melt them in the oven for a few minutes so they stick together and are a tad flatter. Bonus - go buy your mini candy canes after Christmas and get them for 75% off. If you happen to try that, use parchment paper or wax paper otherwise your pan is going to be in bad shape afterward! 

Later this week - highlights from last weekend's outing. 

Super Easy Valentine's Day Project

And by super easy, I mean really. super. easy. And free! What more could you want in a project? I was wanting to sew and work on something crafty, but I was missing a few supplies for the other project I was in the middle of. So I decided to do something Valentiney since we don't really have many decorations for that holiday. Here's how it started:

Hand towel we bought when we got our house here before our stuff arrived, part of a shirt that I've been cutting up for various projects, heart cutout (from clipart on the computer), scissors, and totally useless fabric pencil. When I tried to trace the heart onto the shirt with said pencil it wasn't really working, so I tried harder and got a very faint line. After I cut on the line, I got the heart on the right:

Apparently all of that extra trying made me stretch the fabric a lot, so I gave up on the chalk pencil and just held the pattern on the fabric while I cut (not a good idea, I know). I cut out five hearts and then sewed them on. I told you, super easy :)

I made the hearts a little wider than would fit in a straight line, so I staggered and overlapped them a little. I did the bottom row first then added the top hearts. I didn't fold the edges under or anything, just sewed them right on. I kind of like the edges a little unfinished, I think it looks quaint. Here's the final product:

 

(I promise the edges are rounded on the tops of the hearts, since it's fairly thick terry cloth the hearts don't always lay completely flat)

I might still add smaller hearts inside the hearts that I already did, but I haven't decided yet. If you don't have much experience sewing (and really, even if you don't have a sewing machine), you could still do this project. Hand sewing seems tedious and slow now that I use a machine, but this wouldn't require a ton of stitches and you wouldn't have to make the stitches very close together. The first couple hearts were a little challenging around the curves (I'm still a newb on the sewing machine), but definitely doable. I also have a little disadvantage because my machine is about 50 years old and the knee pedal can be a little temperamental. Happy creating everybody :)