Valentine's Only One Week Away

I really enjoy Valentine's Day. A holiday centered around hearts, love, hugs, snuggles and CHOCOLATE? Come on, what's not to love?

I have hosted a Valentine's Preschooler Craft Party at my church for the past 2 years now, and thusly (yeah, I said thusly) I have a stash of Valentine craft supplies that even Cupid would envy. My original intention was to share and post 14 different Valentine's day ideas from Feb. 1-14 to jump start my blogging again, but while preparing for this year's party, I fell off the blog bandwagon again. But now I'm back!

Here's a simple 3 paneled Valentine banner I made last year. It was inspired by a Halloween "BOO" banner I had seen in a scrapbooking magazine in the Fall of '08, decked out with tons of Halloween embellishments. With time and simplicity as my two driving factors, this version is pretty tame, but you could certainly embellish to your "heart's content".

Basically, I started with 3 pieces of the darkest color paper and cut them into a pennant shape (pointed at the bottom). Then I printed "We" and "You" on a medium shade paper, and printed "Love" on the lightest shade. The three medium shade pieces were also cut to mimic the dark pennant shape, but narrower on every side, and trimmed with pinking shears at the top for a little extra contast. The lightest shade with "Love" printed on it was cut into the shape of a heart, old school style, b/c I am cw/occm (translation: because I am currently without a Cricut machine), for the center panel.

The real character of the banner comes from the 3 flowers at the bottom of the center panel. I started by gluing 3 rickrack and ribbon "stems", then attaching a 4 petal flower to the top of each one. Each flower is made of 5 hand-punched hearts (2 inches, I believe) that have been creased in half (for dimension), pin-hole punched at the bottom, and attached with a simple brad. Note: Attaching the flowers must be done before gluing the center panel to the dark pennant back or else the brad prongs will show thru the back of the piece.

Finally, I used 3-D stickers at the corners of the outer panels, and strung the 3 panels together with coordinating ribbons for hanging.

This banner was a gift for my mom, who taught me that a homemade gift is by far the best way to show someone you love them. I love you, mom.