Valentine’s Day Garland

Are you ready for some more Valentine’s Day goodness?  I had so much fun making the little garland for my wreath last week that I wanted to make another one!

I just fell in love with the combination of the red and white fabric with the baker’s twine.  At first I wasn’t sure what I wanted it to say.  “Happy Valentine’s Day” just wasn’t quite cutting it for me.  Then it hit me…Amour Vincit Omnia.  It means Love Conquers All in Latin and it is the inscription on both Jeremy and my wedding rings.  We have been through a lot together and we always say that no matter what we can get through anything together.  As long as we have each other we can conquer anything!

Okay, okay but you have to let me be a little mushy, this is Valentine’s Day after all!

The garland itself wasn’t hard at all, it just took some time.  The first thing I did was figure about how long I wanted it.  I held the twine up across the fireplace and moved it around until I found the drape I liked the best.  Then I measured the twine, took  a couple of inches off the measurement for each end and then divided up that number by about how many flags I wanted.  I also made sure there was enough left over for space between each of the flags.

Once I had the correct width for my flags I cut several rectangles with different lengths.  I then tried cutting the bottom off each at different angles until I found which one I liked the best.

That is the best part about this project.  There is no right or wrong way to do it.  You can do whatever you want!  I will admit I was a little bit lazy and instead of picking out the “perfect font”, cutting out paper, tracing onto fabric and then cutting out the fabric I simply ironed Heat n Bond on the back of the fabric and ran it through my Cricuit.  Yep I’m lazy!  Andddd it was so worth the time savings!

Remember how I showed you my creative way to hang my door wreaths?  Well the Command hook is back!  The garland is too heavy to be held up by tape and there is no way I’m putting push pins in my mantle, so I grabbed two hooks and hid them behind my vases.  No one will every know!  Except you…but don’t tell okay? 🙂

I don’t have much room to decorate my mantle because  of the big TV that takes up the entire wall.  So I just grabbed a couple of candles from around the house and ta-da!  My sweet mother in law also sent me a big package of Valentine’s Day goodies so I added in some of the boxes and stuffed my vases with red streamers.  Pretty simple and cute I think!

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• Valentine’s Day Wreath

I’m Part of the Craftaholics Anonymous® 2013 Creative Team!!

I am so excited to finally be able to share with you all some pretty crazy awesome news!  Thank goodness for this mornings announcement on Craftaholics Anonymous® because I couldn’t keep quiet much longer!

I have been chosen as part of the

Craftaholics Anonymous 2013 Creative Team!

For those of you who are visiting today from Craftaholics Anonymous® I just want to say welcome and I am so glad you stopped by!  Please feel free to stay awhile and look around at some of my favorite posts from the past. For all of my lovely readers I would love for you to hop over to Craftaholics Anonymous® and read all about the rest of the team!

Painted Kitchen Rug – Fall Wreath – Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes – Chalkboard Accent Wall – Custom Painted French Provencal Dresser

Emma Grace’s Photo Project

Custom Infinity Tattoo Design

Hyperemesis Gravidarum – When is it more than just morning sickness?

I can not wait to share all sorts of awesome projects with you every month.  I already have a pretty cool refab-furniture project all lined up! (Pssst…Want a hint?  Check out my old Inspiration Wednesday posts and see if you can figure out what we have been up to!)

2012 Family Yearbook

Guess what showed up on my door step last week??  It’s our 2012 Family Yearbook!  Ever since I saw the Petersik’s awesome family yearbook at Young House Love I fell in love and knew that it was the perfect solution for all of those pictures I take every year.  Oh and for the record I took a couple thousand this year (yikes…I know) but then I spent hours sorting through them all and then editing the best ones.  I can’t even image how many hours I have spent in the past year editing!!  Wayyyy too many!

I know some people love to make scrapbooks with all of their photos and mementoes from the year and those people deserve some serious love!  I have tried…trust me, they just never turned out how I planned.  I think that is the reason I fell in love with the idea of digital photo books. There are so many companies out there now I just wasn’t sure where to go.  I read a lot of reviews on tons of different publishing companies but for what I wanted everything kept pointing me back to MyPublisher.

What amazed me was that tons of their customers (just like YHL) were more than willing to share their amazing projects, how easy the software was and what a great experience it was to work with the company.  Now that’s what I like to hear!  MyPublisher runs specials all the time so you can catch some pretty awesome deals.  The only setback I found was that they have a 100 page limit on their photo books – yes I know to most people that is a lot but do you remember how many pictures I told you I take a year?

It was SO easy to make my book.  I was planning on spending DAYS working on it…it took crazy perfectionist me only 3 hours!  I’m telling you all I did was download the software, pick out my photos(which it synced with iPhoto!), chose a theme and pushed the amazing “auto build” button and TA-DA!!!  I went back through and added some pages and changed a couple of the layouts but overall I didn’t have to do much work at all!

My favorite feature was how easy it was to change the photo layouts.  For example I had 5 shots of the kids at Halloween with the pumpkins.  I went to the page layout and selected “5 photos” and then was given a whole handful of different options.  That way I could select which combination of portrait and landscape layouts would work best with what I had.  It is amazing!  Did I mention how easy it was?  Oh and by the way I am not being paid or given any perks from MyPublisher, I’m just saying I love my book that much!

The colors turned out absolutely beautiful!  I’ve ordered other printed products where they come back and you are scratching your head wondering how they looked so good on your computer screen and now the final product looks like…well you know what I mean!  Another awesome feature…they have layouts that are square for your Instagram photos!  Yeahhh!!  As you can see below I had maybe a couple or so Instagram photos that I added in!

Since I got our book I’ve been going through all of our old photos and doing a little house keeping in hopes that I can order a couple more photo books sometime in the future!  I’ve definitely been a slacker when it comes to finding a good way to showcase all the photos I take.  I think life just got a lot easier!!!

How do you keep track of all of your families memories??

Disclaimer:  I have not been compensated in any way from MyPublisher for this post.  I just LOVE my book that much and wanted to share my great experience with you!

Valentine’s Day Wreath

Ahh love is in the air!  Remember last week when I shared with you all the things that were inspiring me to get our house decorated for Valentine’s Day?  Well here is my first completed project!  Okay let’s be honest I’m not going to turn the whole house upside down like I do for Christmas but a few festive touches put me in the spirit.

I love wreaths.  I don’t know what it is but there is just something about a warm greeting on your door before you can even answer it for guests.  Yes I know it’s cheesy but I like them okay?

All of those sweet little hearts strung on irresistible baker’s twine?  Awwww!!!

It was super simple!  I cut out two different sizes of hearts in two different colors, made tiny little slits with my scissors and strung the baker’s twine through each of them.  The garland was secured on the back of the wreath with t-pins.

That is it!  Pretty easy and pretty cute too huh?

One of my favorite parts is the ribbon hanger.  Remember the two colored hanger from my Fall wreath?  My front door has always needed an extra good shove to open and close and big clunky metal wreath hangers just make the job more difficult.  So, you want in on a little secret?  I saw this head floating around the internet awhile ago and had to try it out for myself.  All it takes is one Command hook and some ribbon and you have a stylish hanger that will never get in the way of closing your door again!  Love it!  I love those little guys.  Sparkle our Elf on the Shelf even borrowed one when she made her elf zipline!

What secrets to you have up your sleeve when it comes to decorating?  

Goals for 2013

Yes yes I know it’s already more than half way though January and I am just now getting to share my goals for 2013.  You see most people spend New Years Eve having a couple too many glasses of champagne and making crazy  resolutions that we all know you just aren’t going to keep.  So, this year I let the New Years Eve festivities get out of my system and I started seriously thinking about what I wanted to do this year to make my life better.  I have a couple of goals for not only my personal life but my business as well.

Personal

Meal Planning

Let me start off with saying…I’m so ashamed of it but I suck at planning dinners ahead of time and I suck at trying new meals.  Jeremy’s job is not a Monday through Friday 9-5 type of job so a lot of nights are spent having dinner with just the kids.  When Jake was younger he was a pretty picky eater so I just got lazy about making a real dinner for us.  Once Emma Grace started eating table foods with us I swore I was going to get better but I have been slacking off lately.  This year is going to be different!  My goal is to try at least one new recipe a week!  I have a lot of great, easy recipes but I need to expand my collection.  I’m going to hold myself accountable by sharing with you all the new recipes I try out!

Elle Apparel

Style

Oh gosh again another embarrassing one!  Okay graduated from a Textile College and I have a Bachelor’s degree in Brand Management and Marketing.  Wanna know what one of my concentrations was?  …Fashion Development and Design.  Yes, my senior year I designed and developed an entire line that was in three fashion shows and it was awesome if I do say so myself!  Okay flash forward.  Right after I stopped working at my 9-5 job I got pregnant with Emma Grace – the next nine months was spent barely being able to get out of bed or off the couch every day because of my Hyperemesis.  Next couple months after that was trying to get back into shape and get back into my old clothes.  Well since then I’ve settled into what I call my comfy slump.  I wear the same style of clothes over and over because it’s whats comfy and it works for when I’m running around after a toddler at home.  But now I’m struggling to get back on track.  Trust me I have like absolutely nothing cute to wear outside of the house.  Now do you see why I’m struggling to figure out what to wear for our big photo shoot in a couple of weeks?  Eeekk!  At least I have an appointment to get my hair cut (since I haven’t had a trim in over a year..ahhhh!)  Baby steps in the right direction folks!

Livy Love Designs on Etsy

Laundry

2013 is off to a good start but in general…I’m such a slacker.  I always have clean clothes, it’s just the whole folding and putting away thing.  I do the laundry for all four of us and I swear every time I turn around Jake needs a clean pair of jeans or Emma Grace needs a clean blankey.  Because most of my clothes are hung up to dry I always find myself living off of the drying rack because I never get around to folding them.  It’s so annoying and I need to get better.  So far I’m doing pretty good but I need to keep this going!

Business

Ellinee

Planing Ahead

Most of my posts in the past have been sporadic and random in nature.  I usually write something and post it as soon as I’m finished, because I always wait until the last-minute.  I want to get on a schedule.  I want to be able to plan out my posts.  So far I have been planning out posts for Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  My thoughts are that they are all mostly non project posts like round ups or projects that I have already completed.  That way I am able to spend time with the family, work on new projects to share here on the blog but to also work on my other business work (yes, I run another business that takes up a BIG portion of my time during the week!)  I think planning everything out ahead of time is going to make me feel more relaxed and not so rushed all the time.  I’m hoping that this way I can make sure that every post is something you are going to LOVE!  Psst…I’m loving the free downloadable calendar from Ellinee that is keeping me organized!  Get your’s here! 

jRoxDesigns Etsy Shop

Oh Etsy Shop…how I love you!  I jumped on the Etsy bandwagon a VERY long time ago (like 2008)…but I never put anything in the shop.  For the longest time I struggled with the “it’s just not good enough” mentality.  That is part of the reason I started this blog.  I strive to make my blog real – it’s not perfect – but it’s me.  I’ve gotten so much better about knowing when to let it go.  Knowing when to say “It’s not perfect but I love it and it is awesome!”  I have so many projects that I want to be able to make and offer in my shop.  I think my original frustration came from the fact that once I finally put a ton of things in the shop they didn’t sell as quickly as I wanted (or at all!) and I didn’t have as many visitors as I had hoped.  I had set unreal expectations for myself!  I need to be real!  Set real expectations!  Finish those projects!  Just do it!  So in 2013 I want to do my best to have awesome products and gifts in my shop and give it a nice cosmetic face lift!  Hold me accountable y’all!  If my inventory is getting low…tell me and demand more products!  Okay, but be nice about it please 🙂  Have something special you are looking for?  Email me and let me know and I would love to make you something extra special!  I would love for you to stop by and add my shop to your favorites.  I would really appreciate it!

Have you set goals for yourself for the New Year?  I would love to hear them!  Share them with us!  We can all keep each other accountable!