valentines

Since the beginning of February I have been thinking about Valentine’s Day.  Those romantic holiday decorations and candies have been stocked on the stores shelves since (or before Christmas), however I can’t really look forward to the holiday until the month of February has even begun.

I know it is a Hallmark holiday, but I think it is fun to decorate a little bit, and get a little silly and romantic.

My parents used to have a competition with some good friends of theirs in seeing who could keep their Christmas tree up the longest.  There was never a “prize”, just the title of which family had their tree up the longest.  One year it got a little out of hand, and we almost lasted till Valentine’s Day.  We considered making new Valentine ornaments to redecorate the tree, but I believe the tree came down before that was possible.

So there is no tree to decorate, but if you have a door knob, doorway, window or a mantle I have a couple ideas for you.

A few years ago, at Christmas, I saw a felt decoration for a door knob. It was really simple, and I thought that the same idea could be applied to any holiday.  Since I already had my Christmas things up, I thought that I would make some hearts for our door knobs.

They are pretty simple.  I just used a red and white felt and a few types of pink and patterned fabric.  I cut out some free formed hearts and sewed them with my machine.  And I used pipe cleaners to hook them on the mantle and  ribbon to tie them to the door knobs.

My sister Colleen McCray of Mountain Pie Press makes beautiful letterpress stationery and cards.  If you haven’t purchased a card for that special person in our life, take a look at what she has in her store.  She has a nice variety in her style of cards,  I love all of them!  Colleen also makes fabulous letterpress banners too.  I ordered one and can’t wait to get it!  She recently did a commission (of banners) for Mary Dougherty, a photographer in Western NY, for a couple’s engagement photo session.  I am excited to see how the photos come out!

I left you with a photo of what turned out to be a beautiful mistake.  I would love to have this enlarged to 30″ x 40″.