printable valentine word search

I am always on the look out for non food or candy Valentines that my kids can take to school to pass out.  I, myself, love the candy, but their school does not! 

  

A few years ago I shared a Valentine word search that we made for     my son to pass out to his Kindergarten class.  We punched two holes on the side to include a pencil with it. 

I wanted to share that printable with you.  It is on my side bar and you can follow the link and print it out yourself.  

This year, I have a few non food Valentines in the works for my three elementary school aged kids to take.  I am really excited about one and will share it with you soon. 

valentines eve

As I sit here eating the last bit of sweetened condensed milk out of the can from my Seven Layer Bars I thought I would share a few of our Valentine ideas that I hadn't yet posted.

Last night the boys and I worked on their Valentines for their classmates. Their school doesn't allow for them to bring any sugar (good and bad, I think), so this allows us to be a little more creative with what they bring in. I saw Dandee's Ball Valentines on Crafty Crow and thought the boys would love to give those out since they love bouncy balls themselves. Boston, my 10 year old, helped me pick some out on Oriental Trading. He chose the billiards looking bouncy balls and we chose a variety pack for my 7 year old. I made up the tags using Photoshop Elements and we put them in jewelry bags (since I have many of those around). The boys loved how they turned out.

I bought Mallory this striped turquoise shirt on clearance at Old Navy and thought it needed a giant heart in the middle to make it complete. I appliqued on the heart which is out of jersey knit scrapped from one of her dad's old shirts.

Lastly, I made one more pillow out of this totally cute cupid fabric I picked up at IKEA last February and forgot about until I started digging in my fabric last week. Yea to finding it in time!

bee mine appliqued shirt and pattern

It's time to find a shirt and add an applique for Valentines Day! And with a few days until Valentines, you know you want to. I have a good friend who encourages us to make these for our daughters at each holiday and I am so grateful that she does because we get it done and have so much fun in the process. This time, she came over along with Melissa (who made a little something else and I am sure she will share with you soon) and we had fun (I mean- got to work).

It was a Bee Mine applique this time and HERE is the pattern for you to use as well. I used the original size of the pattern and for my friend, Vicki, we enlarged it 115% so that it was more proportioned to her t-shirt since her daughter is a bit older.The bee is done in fabric while the "mine" is freezer paper stenciled with fabric paint. The stinger is a zig zag satin stitch that gradually gets smaller. I attached the googly eyes with clear fabric paint. I think they should last in the wash if I turn the shirt inside out. But, I will test it!

Here's Vicki's shirt for her daughter Molly.

salt dough valentine heart necklaces

My daughter and I thought it would be fun to make some necklaces for her friends for Valentines this year. In the past we have used salt dough to make heart magnets at Valentines for relatives and teachers. So, using that same salt dough recipe, we cut out hearts for salt dough necklaces. Here's how:

Salt Dough Recipe:

1 cup salt

2 cups flour

1 cup water

Bake for 1-2 hours at 200 degrees until dried out.

We cut them out using heart cookie cutters and added a hole before baking.After baking, Mallory and I painted the hearts using acrylic paint.
We added dots and hearts for detail.
When the paint had dried, we sprayed them with a glossy acrylic sealer - several coats made them shine.
Finally, we added 25" long skinny ribbon and made lots of bright pretty necklaces.And, because we had so much salt dough, we used the extra to make magnets for family and teachers.We added button magnets using E-6000 glue.

my french valentine

I had one more pillow cut out of canvas sitting on my sewing table and over the weekend I finished it up. I used the same dimensions from my tutorial.

I decided to show some love in another language and freezer paper stenciled "je t'aime which is "i love you" in French. I used the treehouse font from da font -one of my new favorites.

valentine graphic sign

The beauty of having a husband in the home building business is the joy of using up his scrap wood pile. The other day at lunch he told me he had some scrap trim he was going to dispose of and I followed him back to the house and stuck it in the car. I wasn't sure what I "needed" it for, but I knew I "needed" it.

Eventually, I knew what I wanted to use them for...Valentine Signs. I had my husband cut the long trim pieces down to 28" each. They are about 10" wide with the beveled lip.

I printed up my words of "love" in different fonts and made stencils then hand painted each word.

Figuring out the placement of each word was the hardest part, but once I got them all in place, it was a fun process.

new hair clips (i cheated)

I wanted to make a few new hair clips for Mallory. I made a couple heart clips using Molly's tutorial from Purl Bee. I cheated on the others by just hot gluing resin hearts I got on clearance for 10 cents last year at Hobby Lobby to the other clips.

Now, I did some serious cheating with these star, flower and cupcake clips. I found these felt stickers by Pebbles on clearance at Michaels that come in four packs like for about $1. I thought that it would be easier to hot glue them on clips than to make these felt shape myself. Instant cute hair clips!

a little more love

It's an addiction all right. I have been cutting out sugar (my addiction) from my diet as of late due to some health problems, so maybe this has replaced it - the addiction of sewing Love pillows. It's a lot better for my health than the sugar! I made four more pillows using the tutorial I posted here.

I like them all, but I am digging the grey felt applique on the red striped fabric. This might be my favorite.

The hot pink looks cool on the white with black dot fabric. This photo doesn't show the colors well.

I freezer paper stenciled the cream and black one using black fabric paint. I have given a few of these away and plan on tossing the rest on people's door steps since I have been making a few too many.

I am keeping the grey heart appliqued pillow for myself. Got to keep some of the Love at home!

valentine table runner

I have needed a small little runner on my entry table for some time. I had plans to get one done for Christmas using vintage table cloths, but since the fabrics for it are still sitting in a pile upstairs by my sewing machine, I decided to move on and make one for Valentines day. It's not too long - just 42" and it's 13" wide. I just took scraps of my favorite red and pink fabrics and cut them in to either 2", 3", or 4" wide and pieced them together. I stitched in the ditch for the quilting part. I really need to branch out with some sort of free motion, but for now, I am staying in the ditch. I photographed it on my kitchen table and it looks tiny there, but it is the perfect size for my entry table. I am excited that I got it done. I actually might get the Christmas one done now since it came together so quickly!

love pillow tutorial

Love Pillow Tutorial

I am so excited to share this simple tutorial with you. You can get this pillow done in about an hour. Isn't that awesome? Also, with so many different color and fabric options. I have made three and have plans for a few more that include hot pink and polka dots! So, let me share the tutorial with you:
You will need:
Love Pattern Pieces (One and Two)
1 front piece of fabric (I used duck canvas) 14" high X 19 1/2" long
2 back pieces of fabric 14" high X 12 1/2" long
fabric paint
sponge paint brush
freezer paper
1 travel pillow 14"X20" (I bought mine at Walmart for $3!!)
1. Print out your two pieces of the Love pattern and trace on to a sheet of freezer paper. Over lap the two so that the "L" goes in to the "o".
2. Cut out the Love letters (ha!) with an Xacto knife making sure you keep the insides of the "L", "o" etc. to use with for the stencil.
3. Iron the freezer paper stencil on to the front piece of the pillow, putting another piece of freezer paper underneath. If you want to look at a freezer paper stencil tutorial closely check out Dana's at Made. I centered it making sure it was 3 1/2" inches from the top of the "L" to the top of the fabric and 3 1/2" from the bottom of the letters to the fabric. And, approximately 3 1/2" from end of the "L" to left side of the fabric and 3" from the "e" to end of the right side of the fabric.
4. Apply the fabric paint to the fabric. It takes me 2 to 3 coats to get the coverage I want.5. Let it dry and then peel off the stencil. If there are any spurts of paint that have leaked, feel free to take a paint brush out and fix it as much as possible. (I had to do this a bit myself!)
6. Take the two back pieces of the pillow and serge or zig zag stitch down one 14 1/2" side on each.7. Iron over 3/8" on the two pieces you just serged and sew seam. I hope your ironing board cover is cleaner than mine!!
8. Line the back pieces and front piece right sides together and pin. Sew all the way around with a 1/2" seam.
9. Zig Zag stitch or serge all the way around to make sure the ends don't fray especially if you are using canvas.
10. Turn right side in and it should look like this on the front and back.
11. Stuff the pillow form in to the new cover and take it to the nearest couch to admire.
OPTIONS - You can also use this Love pattern as an applique like I did on this black and white dot pillow. I used the pattern to cut the words out of red felt and using Wonder Under and a zig zag stitch, I appliqued it on to the front of the pillow.