Valentine's Day Mantle

I love fireplaces. One day I really really really want to have a wood buring fireplace in my house. The look, the smell, the sound, :)...

But for now, I live in a rental to I'll settle for just a mantle. That's right, I just have a mantle form, like an outline.

See? While, since Pinterest came into my life I have seen plenty of fun ways to decorate your mantle. So on Sunday, while the hubs way away, I crafted.

Actually, the mantle was not my intended target when I started crafting on Sunday. The front door was...

I had seen this wreath on Pinterest and really wanted to make one:



via

So on Saturday while I was in Fargo, Ashley and I went to Hobby Lobby and I got fabric (I hate that I have to drive 2 hours to go to a Hobby Lobby, who's idea was it to move here??), but I couldn't/didn't have time to find a wreath form. So when I got home I ripped and cut the fabric into strips that were 8 x 1 1/2 inches.



Lots and lots of pieces of fabric. Then I got out some wire that I had at home from making wire words (check out this post to read about wire words) and I made a heart frame. I figured if I had to make my own wreath frame I could make it any shape that I wanted. Then I started tying the fabric to the heart

Then, after lots of tying and squishing together and tying and squishing together and adding a ribbon to hang it from- I had a finished heart shaped wreath to hang on my front door:

Aside from the wreath- it's my door beautiful? I love that it's old and it has bevelved glass and that there are sratches in the wood. It's not very warm or energy efficent but it's so beautiful and it just looks like it has stories to tell. I absolutely love old houses. I love their charm and character. The Mr wants a new house that doesn't have problems and is energy efficent. Blah, blahm blah. We'll just have to build one someday that looks old... Think I can talk him into it??

When I finished the wreath I had a bunch of little strips of fabric left. Well, I had seen this on pinterest and really wanted to make one:

But I didn't have an extra string of white lights and I didn't really know where I'd put it. It'd be beautiful wrapped around a banister on an open staircase... but our house is only 1 floor so no staircase. It'd be cute in a little girl's room with mostly pinks, purples, and yellows... but no babies for us yet. Hhhmmm....

Now I have all of this left over fabric from the wreath. And I have white Christmas lights hanging in our bedroom that we never turn on. And I have a mantle that just has country chic looking things hanging from it. I could change it just for a month couldn't I? Of course I could, the Mr was out west snowmobiling- who was going to stop me?

Sorry it's kind of a bad picture, but you get the idea. And we already had nails to hang the lights from on the mantle from the country chic things and our Christmas stockings. Score!! I printed this off of pinterest and got the white frame at HL 1/2 off!!



Isn't it cute? I wish there way someway that I could show you how great it really looks when it's lit up at night. I love it!

After I finished that on Sunday night I figured I should be productive around the house... not nearly as much fun. But ever since we got married the Mr has been asking if we could have dinner at our dining room table. It kind of just became a dumping ground. It had wedding stuff all over it, cards, gifts, programs, favors, plates (paper plates still in the packages, not dirty ones), etc. It was basically covered in stuff that I hadn't gotten around to putting away yet. Apparently, eating dinner at our table is important to my Mr. If you read my SWW post today you'd know that it isn't as important to me since I am totally ok with chips and salsa for lunch. So I thought while he was gone I would get the table cleared off and...



I did!! Isn't our $50 rummage sale find table great?? But the clean table came at a cost...

My craft room...



From the door and then from the closet. Isn't it bad? I can't believe I'm actually sharing these with you!! You can kind of see the pile of gifts that need to be put away in the computer room from the picture by the closet. So I guess this needs to be my next project, clean and organizing the craft room so I can use it again and I don't have to craft on the living room floor (cuz I'm sure the Mr loves that...).

How about you? Did you decorate for Valentine's Day? Are you going to??

Love, Mrs. K