Valentine's Day home decor - hanger with cork hearts

Back to my basic material hoard. Now let's do something with those wine corks.

First the corks from the sparkling wine. They are shaped differently than wine corks so I opted for gluing them on the carton paper first, just to make sure they hold together. Hot glue is my helper again.

 I drew the lines of heart just to know approximately how the glue them together. I also glue the cork pieces separately to each other. I cut the heart out when dry.

The other hearts I make from the wine corks. The first one I picked the corks naturally colored red from the red wine to reach red heart. I glue each piece I add to the other pieces using hot glue. Putting the new corks to create the shape of heart.

The other heart I picked mixed naturally colored corks. I like the color diversity on this one. I also made it smaller and wider.

I was not happy with Martini marks on the sparkling wine cork heart so I decided to paint it red with acrylic paint. I also wanted the pop of color between other hearts.

After I covered it with the layer of varnish to get that shine.

I got the hanger ready. Since the hearts and other fabrics I'm about to use, are colorful enough I kept the "hanger" bar simple as it gets, just to get that rustic feel. I hammered 3 nails in it ready for the hearts.

I glued folded white gauze (always folded to get the volume) around natural red heart...

...the red linen ribbon around the mixed colors heart.... (got it on amazing sale after the holidays)

...and natural linen fabric around the red painted heart. I always make the stripe longer and leave couple inches loose in the middle of the heart, where I start and end gluing.

At the end I tie the dark red ribbon to natural hearts and natural twine to the colored heart to contrast each heart.

I wrap the remaining fabric on the top of each heart around the ribbon/twine. The hearts are ready to be hung anywhere it works for you. 

I decided to hang them on the natural wooden hanger bar with the nails I got ready earlier. If you don't want to have new nail in the wall just for couple weeks of this decoration being displayed, you can use my favorite Command stripes, that you can easily remove from the wall when the Valentine's over.

Or you can make the whole hanger hang on piece of twine :-)

Valentine's Day home decor - wreath

So again, I'm starting picking the materials from my basic bunch I collected before making all this year's Valentines decorations. Let's do something with that wreath.

I got mine in Michaels for around $8. They offer bunch of basic wreaths of different materials. I used the linen fabric of natural color.

I cut the fabric into 2 stripes, fixed the beginning with hot glue to the wreath and wrap it around. Finished fixing int with hot glue again.

Very simple, quick and at the end the wreath looks softer and has rustic feel to it with fray end coming out.

Time to use these wooden hearts, that I got in Michaels too. I painted them red with acrylic paint.

After covered with two layers of Varnish, to protect it and give it a shine.

Took red wire I got in Michaels on 80 percent off sale, for ridiculous couple cents. Here is my advice. If you like to do the DIY project for you, always make a trip to the stores after holidays. After Christmas I got 2 bags of material for couple dollars! Red material I knew I'd use for Valentines and 4th of July and green for St. Patrick's Day. I made hearts out of the red wire with just my hands.

The hearts, that got dry I decorated with burlap, twine and lace...

..with the help of my best friend - hot glue. Added the metal heart shaped buttons I got in Jo-Ann, also glued with hot glue. I decorated little heart with our family monogram.

Put the nails from the back side of the hearts and hang them with the twine on the wreath. Ending tying them with little bow. The rest of the cotton lace I used for hanging the whole wreath at the door.

Valentine's Day home decor - felt hearts

The basic material for this project is felt sheets. The rest of materials is up to you. I didn't buy anything new for this project, I just used whatever I had in my house and leftovers from other projects. I got the felt at Jo-Ann for 35 cents a sheet. Got 4 colors - red, pink, white and beige.
First I cut different sizes of hearts out using scissors. You always have to cut two same of each color and size obviously, you will stitch them together.

Then stitch those two pieces of felt together. I used different colors of embroidery floss for each, to get a diverse look.  I also used different stitching styles. Before you stitch the heart all  around, leave a small gap to put the filling in to get the full look. I use the polyester fiber fill I got a while ago at Jo-Ann. They have them anywhere and the bag I got lasts forever. I'm sure you will use it for various projects. After the filling is in, stitch the rest of the heart. This is how the hearts look like when they are finished:

I picked 4 hearts of different colors and embroidered them with simple stitches with the initials of all the members of my family.

I pulled embroidery floss through each of them and hang and tied them on the twine on my mirror. This is what it looks like when finished :-)

I took rest of the hearts and all the materials I found in my house and thought they would be useful at this project. My favorites are laces of all colors, buttons, pearls...you can use ribbons also!

I decorated each heart differently and through the tiny hole at the bottom of each heart I pierced them with bamboo skeweres you find in every kitchen. I cut the sticks on the other side different lengths, to make them each pop out on different level when I stick them in the vase.

And this is the result.

At the end I tied a white piece of lace around the vase with big bow.

Turned out pretty well. What do you think?

Valentine's Day home decor - candle holder/vase

This is the base I'm starting with all my Valentine's Day decorations this year. I collected everything I had in my house that could be useful:

The first project would be a candle holder or vase. I used glass jar from jam. Cleaned all labels. Used the thick twine that I glued with the hot glue to the jar creating the shape of heart on both sides of the jar. I continued gluing the twine piece after piece all around the jar to fill out all the empty spots, except the heart of course.

Now time to decorate the jar neck. I had to get couple more material adding to my starting base. I opted for pink glass pearls. Putting them on embroidery floss to wrap it around the neck of the jar and over it wrapping the pink yarn around it to secure the thread with pearls.

I end up tying the yarn securely and leaving a cute bow.

This is just an idea. The choice of colors or materials is up to you, you can use different shape or size of the jar, different materials, like yarns, threads, buttons instead of pearls, basically anything you find in your house. It will still look great :-)

This can be a cute candle holder leaving the candle light through the heart shaped window. If you have a big jar, it would be amazing vase for the Valentine's Day bouquet from your dear one.

Would love to see your creation! :-)

Autumn inspired table runner

What you need:
fabric - any autumn warm color
burlap
metallic paints
mini paint roll or paint brush
autumn decor - leaves, pines, accorns, ..
hot glue

First I cut fabric, I got in Jo-Ann fabrics. I picked orange because it's a beautiful warm color that defines fall season and looks great against dull color of burlap. I also loved that fabric has tiny gold dots pattern on it, what worked with my plans to use metallic colors.
After I cut the piece in shape of table runner, I didn't sew the edges, just pulled couple threads all around it to make a shabby look.
The width of the under runner should be wider than burlap.

Now comes the messiest part - the painting. I cut the stencil piece out of carton to help me paint the stripes evenly. I used gold metallic paint and paint roller.

Now time to paint autumn decorations. I got mine in Michaels. It cost literally couple dollars. Bunch of leaves, pines and accorns and some berries. They are mostly plastic of fabric, the pines are real but it's really up to you if you'd like to use the real accorns. The real leaves wouldn't work I guess.

I decided to use 3 different shades of metalic paint to make it more colorful. Gold, Silver and Copper.
Got these on sale in Michaels for a little over 1$ each YAY! Just love them. Still have enough paint left for my next project of pumpkins and hopefully Christmas projects.

With the leaves, I pulled the plastic part away, went pretty easily. The leaves got more soft and flexible.

Now the painting part. I split the decor in 3 parts and painted each group different color.

I left it all dry overnight, just to make sure, it should be dry within an hour or so though, if you're impatient.
Now, meet my new best friend - hot glue.

And that's it! I spread the burlap runner over the orange fabric runner.

..and added my last year's fall decoration - the vase with metallic painted mini polystyrene pumpkins I got in K-mart that I just pierced with wooden sticks.