DIY Painted Valentines

I'm participating in a Valentine card exchange with some lovely blogging mammas this year so Saturday night after Harper went to sleep for the night, I got out my trusty crafting box and got to work (I'll do a reveal of all of the Valentines we recieve on the 14th!)

I loved making these Valentines! It only took me about an hour and a half to make these, including the time the paint took to dry, writing all of the addresses on envelopes and sealing them to be mailed. 

I had purchased some Valentine crafting items from Target to make my cards but my original plan just wasn't looking the way I wanted when I started to experiment. As I sat there, wondering what I'd try next, I suddenly thought "paint!" I have so many of those acrylic paints so I got out my hot pink, white and baby pink paints to create a nice base/background for my Valentines.

Step by Step:
1. Use heavyweight paper and cut Valentines to have rounded corners (I just traced our Christmas card so they'd all be even). I think rounding the edges or even using those crafing scissors that can do scalloped or pointy edges makes them more fun.

2. Add three (or more!) paint blobs to a paper plate

3. Use a foam brush or regular paint brush and get creative! Paint horizontal, vertical, diagonal or squigly lines--- it's up to you. I would paint a card and then add more dark or light pink depending on the look I wanted for that specific card.

4.  Add finishing touches--- mine were all from Target. I used a glue gun to affix anything that didn't already have an adhesive on the back. I cut out gold glittery hearts, made hearts out of pipecleaners, etc. 

That's it! As you can see, this is a super easy project. If these were for adults, I would have gone with a more sophisticated look and maybe used a black or gold marker to write a pretty saying about love on the front of the card. I think that would look nice against the painted background. However, that would not really be fun or appropriate for babies and kiddos since they are more drawn to bright colors, textures, etc, so I wanted these to reflect that. Harper obviously couldn't help make them this year, but next year, I'll have to think about Valentines we can make together.

Some of my supplies from Target---the glitter paper I used to make the gold hearts (not shown) was from Michael's.

Mixing my paint colors to achieve different looks as I painted each card. You can add more paint as you go.

Below are the finished Valentines---I used the first letter of each baby/child's name on their Valentine to peronalize it a little bit. I wrote out the name on a few as well.

Are you making Valetines this year? Let me know in the comments below!

DIY Painted Pumpkins with Gold Polka Dots!

I saw a lot of awesome painted pumpkin tutorials on Pinterest recently and wanted to get in on all the fun. I absolutely LOVE DIY projects and crafting and even though I don't have as much free time now, I tend to craft turbo-speed style on weekends after Harper is asleep!

| the final product | 

After picking up some pumpkins at the pumpkin patch over the weekend, I decided to break out my acrylic paints and get down with some pumpkin painting.

I decided to go with smaller pumpkins because they are easier to display inside of your home and they just look so cute when paired together!

What you'll need:

• Acrylic paint
• Glue gun
• Scrapbook/craft paper
• Scissors
• Paint brush
• Surface protector (I used a plastic bag from Target)

I started off by applying 2 coats of Folk Art brand acrylic paint that you can purchase at Michael's Arts & Crafts. Once the pumpkins were dry, I intended to use a gold paint to paint polka-dots, but after just one dot, I knew it was going to look terrible and I remembered I had shiny gold and gold glitter scrapbooking/craft paper left over from previous projects. 

I got out my trusty glue gun and began cutting out circles (I freehanded them, they don't have to be perfect) and I applied a dot of glue to each dot before affixing to the painted pumpkin. It's really that easy. The most time consuming part is cutting out the dots.

Have you done any fun Halloween DIY projects? Let me know in the comments...I definitely plan to get even more creative next year now that I've tested out painting pumpkins!

I also wanted to quickly share my Halloween chalkboard design. I used Jessica's tutorial to make my chalkboard out of a mirror I bought at Marshalls Home Goods (I painted chalkboard paint straight onto the mirror, no primer). It's actually a full length mirror, so pretty huge. I absolutely suck at lettering in chalk, but this was my first "okay" attempt that I completed after reading a chalk lettering tutorial on Pinterest:

Pretty cute, right? I can't wait to get better at lettering! I also made that pom-pom garland myself but need to make some more for the holidays!