Conversation Hearts Wreath and Valentine's Day Buffet Table

Doing a little combo post here;) Wanted to show you the cutie-patootie wreath I made the other day - in seriously 20 minutes - ridiculously easy, cheap, and quick? Well sign me up!

I just love this little guy! Thanks to Pinterest of course, I found this on a super clever blogger's page and *happened* (cough, cough) to be at my home away from home Michaels the very next day and spotted a foam wreath...honestly, I really wasn't there to pick up a foam wreath, but I remembered the cute conversation heart wreath I had just pinned and decided to grab it. So then of course I had to make a pit stop at the Dollar Tree (in my defense, it is on the way home;), to grab oh, about a bajillion bags of conversation hearts. Since I had only pinned it and hadn't read the directions, I didn't know how many bags I would need and man do I HATE being in the middle of a project and running out of something! Does that bug the you-know-what out of you too? So naptime arrived and I fired up the glue gun, and got my materials ready:

I think I did go through about 3 bags of the large conversation hearts. Again, didn't read the blog, so was just guessing, and thought maybe the large ones would be good...welp, turns out, the smaller ones would probably be better. When you use the big ones, there was some space between them (if I had been clever enough to maneuver them in different directions, it probably would have worked, but I just started gluing in rows, and before I knew it, there was foam staring me right in the face. Luckily, I had also bought bazkillions of red hots also (for the L-O-V-E glasses), so I stole a few and glued them in the spaces, like so:

Actually, I kinda like the shots of red, so it all worked out;) I picked up some ribbon at the Dollar Tree also, and hung it on the mirror. AMAZING what you can pick up for a buck, right??

Ok, now for some crazy cheap buffet table decorating, are you ready? I'm talking CHEAP. I used what I already had, and decorated this table for just a few buckeroos.

Let's start left to right, shall we? Ok, I LOVE me some free printables for the holidays, but wouldn't you know it, I flippin' RAN OUT of ink, of all times! So since I have zero patience, until we pick up some more ink, I made a little art for the frame (which we already had). I took a piece of poster board, cut it to fit, used my pink Elmer's paint marker to write "All you need is" then some stencils I had for "LOVE" (in red). I cut a strip of leftover paper to glue to the bottom for a little extra somethin' aaaand we're done. Cost: free.

Whenever we get more colored ink, I'll probably print out one of those adorable printables, but in the meantime, this'll work.

Next up, the glass dome with the felt rosettes ball.

First, I picked up one of these foam floral thingys at the Dollar Tree - yes, this was all on the same trip, it was a good day;).

I just taped them together to make a ball.

Then I just followed the same steps as when I made the felt rosettes for my Ravens wreath (who are in the FREAKIN' PLAYOFFS PEOPLE!!! Sorry, a little excited for this weekend...). Basically, cut a ton of squares out of your felt.

Cut them into circles, then starting on the outside, cut a spiral shape until it looks like this:

Then, start at the very center, and just kinda pull it together...

Until you have a cute little rosette!

Hot glue that little end, so it's not just dangling there, and you're good to go! Now do this 999 more times (kidding - for this little guy you really don't need to do it a ton - I didn't keep track, but I do know I used about 3 or 4 pieces of felt).

Then, start hot gluing them onto the foam ball and it'll look like this when you're done:

I then just plopped him on a plate, covered with a glass dome, and tied a Valentine's Day ribbon around the top. I LOVE felt rosettes so much, I'm thinking of making a couple more of these guys for the mantel, perhaps in some sort of topiary fashion (stay tuned;). OH! And if you haven't seen the magic my friend Shannon makes with felt flowers over at Fox Hollow Cottage, you must check it out! She's just a felt genius. Love her idea of ruffling the edges when you cut the spiral, so they look more like real roses. Plus, she's just awesome, so I think you should check her out regardless;) Total cost: $2.80 (for the felt and foam ball)

Ok, next we have the heart plate!

This was an old plate I had laying around the house that I never used anymore. I sprayed it with red spray paint (already had in my crazy huge spray paint collection), then bought a cute piece of scrapbook paper, cut a heart shape, and used Mod Podge to stick it on there. Looks seamless too, LOVE that mod podge, don't you? Total cost: 59 cents for the piece of paper.

That red framed chalkboard was once this picture frame that was collecting dust:

So I just used the same red spray paint for the frame, removed the glass and sprayed some chalkboard spray paint on that part and that's IT.

Yowza. It's really not that bright in actuality, I promise! Looks almost orange-y to me here...moving on...

If you look closely, you'll see these doilies are actually laminated, with some staple marks in them! That would be from my teaching days, when I decorated my CLASSROOM with these around the calendar bulletin board! Wow! Talk about taking a stroll down Memory Lane. I never dreamed when I was stapling them up back then, that I'd be sitting here blogging about decorating with them! Life is funny, huh? I already had the string of jute, and the red mini clothespins are what we use to hang up our Christmas cards every year, so I had those as well. Total cost: free.

Just for the heck of it, since it's also in the dining room, here's the current saying on the chalkboard - I erased Oh Holy Night a while ago, and wrote this, but I think it'll fit just fine for Valentine's Day, don't you?

Couldn't be more true.

So there you have it. Whew, that was a lot of pics, sorry for the overload! Hopefully you got some thrifty ideas to decorate for Valentine's Day. There's more to come, and you can bet more conversation hearts will be involved;).


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