It’s A Valentine’s Tablescape

February 2, 2024January 24, 20243 Comments

Hello! I hope you are all ready because this blog post is going to be a fun one! So hold onto your hats and hold on until the end! I promise you won’t be disappointed.

*This blog post contains sponsored content from Oriental Trading Company*

So it’s becoming that time again for all of the love. You know what I’m talking about. Hearts in red and pink all over the stores shelves. And not only in the stores, but also online as well. And Oriental Trading is all about the holidays.

And after much deliberation on what to pick from their website, I finally decided on doing a tablescape. So after doing a lot of shopping around and putting things in my cart and taking them out, I finally ordered my things and started my tablescape.

And here it is! I love how it turned out and love each piece that I picked out. So lets see what I picked.

The first thing is this cute candy jar. It has a small chalkboard on the front so you can write what kind of candy is in it. Or, you can draw a heart on it like I did. But it fits quite a bit of candy in it, so go bananas!

The next thing is the heart tree, if that’s what you want to call it. It’s a tree in a small pot that you can bend and shape however you want to. It’s only about 18 inches tall, so it won’t block your view of your loved one.

There’s also the rose garland in the middle of the table. I added the pink puffball garland and the white puffball garland as well, just to add some stuff to the middle.

And these jewels? Yep, bought them from Oriental. I bought a pink, black, and clear pack so I had a variety to spread around the table. Each color came in a pack of 25 diamonds, so you get a lot of bang for your buck.

The plates were also purchased from Oriental. And the silver place mats! Okay, the place mats were from mom from the last time we worked with Oriental, but they looked great with the rest of the tablescape. I bought the small candy baking cups from the 99 Cent Store, but they looked so good with the plates.

So this is what the table looks like from above! It’s so cute!

The last thing I got from Oriental was this pretty gold LOVE sign. It sat so nicely on the cake plate in the background of the photos. And I must say that I am very excited to put this on my gallery wall in my apartment.

Side note: out cat Kiara is extremely nosy and wants to be in the middle of EVERYTHING.

And finally, we found some cute pet clothes for Valentine’s Day at the 99 Cent Store which we had to buy. Repeat HAD TO. So we had a little doggy (and kitty) photoshoot for the holiday!

Obviously, Kiara looks annoyed that I took her photo, but I love her all the better! And Ezzy is on a different couch because she is our senior citizen and I didn’t want to move her.

So that was my fun with Oriental. I love how the table turned out, but I love the animals as well. Have a good Wednesday!

Valentine Vintage Place-setting Tablescape

January 30, 2024January 24, 20246 Comments

Good morning! I was able to set up my table for Valentines this weekend. After Lauren set up her Valentine table last week, I decided to put one together too. I received the pretty glass pink plates from my mom a couple of weeks ago and knew right away they would work for Valentines. The plates came from my great aunt. I always love using pieces that have been passed down from my family. The white and blue teacups and saucers were my wedding dishes. I love being able to pull them out once in awhile and use them.

One of the reasons I enjoy Valentines Day is from an experience in high school. I went to a private high school with small classes, about 75-80 kids in each grade. There are a lot of special things you can do when the school is so small. What I remember most is Heart Sisters.

Heart Sisters was a special time for just the girls and it included all the female students and teachers. Each of us would pick the name of another person and secretly give them gifts each day leading up to Valentines Day.

My freshman year is the only year that really stands out to me. I got a seniors name, which was really intimidating to a shy freshman like me. I remember my mom and I shopping for little things to give her each day.

On Valentine’s Day, we all met in the gym at lunch time. We sat in a big circle. The person you had sat on one side of you and the person who had you sat on the other.

This was the 80’s, mind you. I can still remember what I was wearing, partly because the teacher who had my name commented that the sweater I was wearing was pretty. It was royal blue with white angora clouds on it.

It was such an awkward lunch! What do you say to a senior girl and a teacher when you are only a freshman? I’m sure I didn’t say too much!

Even though it was so awkward for me, I still enjoyed the idea of giving secret gifts to someone during Valentine week. It was fun to see what you would get and all the different ways you would receive your gift.

When my girls were small, we even did it as a family. It was a little difficult with only 4 of us, but it was still fun.

For the past few years, we have even done it at the preschool where I work. We have 9 of us ‘girls’ working and it’s fun to have a little something special for us to do for each other. Some days are hectic and stressful, so it’s great to have a little something to encourage us each day.

I hope you enjoyed my Valentine table today and thanks for coming by!

Five Easy Valentine Ideas to DIY

January 18, 2024January 11, 20242 Comments

Good morning! This is a post from a few years ago, but I still think these are all cute projects to make for your special Valentine!

I’ve enjoyed seeing some of the Valentine ideas I have been seeing, so I thought I would share a few of my own. I am even adding a new DIY for you!

Valentine Gum and Candy Basket

Get your Valentine’s favorite gum and candy and put it all together in this cute little basket! Add some pretty ribbon as an accent.

2. Valentine Pixie Stix and Flower Vase

Here is another candy idea, but with flowers! It’s a great way to up-cycle a tin can too! This would make a great teacher gift!

valentine mantel pixie stix flower vase 2016

3. Faux Flower Heart for Valentine’s

Here is another project with flowers, this time shaping them into a heart! Of course, you could use any color you want!

4. I Love You Wooden Blocks

This is a little simple project to decorate your home for Valentine’s Day! You could use blocks and letters to spell out whatever you want.

5. Stamped Heart Treat Bag

Here is another sweet idea to make for your Valentine! You could fill the little bag with stickers, jewelry or candy!

I started with a plain muslin bag, pink paint, heart shaped cookie cutter and foam dauber. I wanted to use a rubber stamp, but I couldn’t locate one in my stash, so a cookie cutter was my next choice. It worked great! Just make sure to wash it well before you make your Valentine cookies! 🙂 I added a little bit of paint to the foam dauber and added it inside the heart. Be sure to put a piece of paper or cardboard inside the bag so the paint doesn’t go through.

Once the paint was dry, I got out my letter stamps and some black ink. I picked out the letters I wanted to use. I started with the word ‘love.’

I pressed the stamp into the ink pad and then pressed it onto the bag and the heart. I didn’t worry about keeping the letters straight or even. Obviously!

Don’t they look cute! They are perfect for adding just a little something for your special valentine!

Aren’t these fortune cookies the cutest!! I found them at the Dollar Tree and they come with a special fortune inside. I can’t wait to see what the fortunes will be!

pink painted valentine bags fortune cookie

pink painted valentine bags i love you be mine

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day! If you create one of these projects, I would love to know! Have a great week!

DIY Valentine Ombre’ Wooden Heart

January 27, 2020January 26, 20202 Comments

Good morning! It’s the last week of January already! Valentine’s Day is coming quickly. I posted a few ideas last week too. Here is the link in case you missed it. I have another simple Dollar Tree craft for you today.

This post also contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

Dollar Tree

I found this unfinished heart at my local Dollar Tree. I had the pink and white paint on hand but they do carry paints at the store too. I also picked up some valentine ribbon and a couple of plastic heart necklaces.

I started out by picking my paint. I picked white and two shades of pink. I put each color in a pan. I knew I wanted to paint the heart ombre’, so I started with white at the top of the heart.

Next, I used the lighter pink while the white was still wet. I blended the white and pink together where the colors met and then continued adding the pink down the heart.

Lastly, I added the dark pink, using the same technique as above.

Once the paint was dry, I penciled in the word love.

I went over the letters with hot glue and then laid the bead necklace on top of the glue. I did small sections at a time so the glue wouldn’t dry. I just snipped the necklace when the letter ended and then started the next one.

There had been a small piece of twine to hang the heart with, but I decided to use a piece of Valentine ribbon instead. I drilled the holes a little larger to fit the ribbon through and then just knotted it in the back.

I also bought the scarf and fortune cookies at the Dollar Tree. The cute little bird came from Target after Christmas, but the pink looks great for Valentine’s Day!

Do you decorate for Valentine’s Day? I like just adding a few little touches on my mantle. Have a great day!

Fun Christmas Activity for Kids

November 15, 2019November 19, 20194 Comments

Good morning! How has everyone’s week been? I am so happy that today is Friday. Not because it’s been a really long week, but it’s the weekend and I have a lot of fun stuff planned. So I cannot wait for Friday to be over!

Welcome to the 5th annual 12 Days of Holiday Ideas event, hosted by Shirley of Intelligent Domestications and Erlene of My Pinterventures Between Nov. 11th and December 6th there will be hundreds of new ideas shared by over 55 Co-host bloggers!

Go here to see our kick-off collection of Holiday ideas as well as all of this years talented participating DIY and Foodie Blogs. Download this years November and December calendars with all of the topics and dates so you can make plans to watch for ideas!

We are hosting a BIG GIVEAWAY from our Sponsors this year! Be sure to scroll all the way down for more information and to enter to win!

We are continuing on the 12 days of Christmas with a fun Kids Activity! Or, a fun day for kids, whichever you prefer. We decided to go with an afternoon of fun for the kids and Oriental Trading Company has helped us tremendously with this! They were gracious enough to give us some of the supplies needed to complete our fun afternoon!

My inspiration was a fun little girl Paris party. We wanted to have some Eiffel Towers and lots of pink! Of course this is my kind of party! We wanted white, Eiffel Towers, pink, silver, gold, snacks, and a fun activity. Thankfully, Oriental Trading was able to help us out with some of these things.

So we started our afternoon by setting the table. We had a beautiful faux fur table runner (I’ll just say that mom and I have really enjoyed petting it, it’s SOOO SOFT) and we used it as a faux snow for our centerpiece. We had some white houses that we used to decorate last year and some Eiffel Towers that I have as decoration around my apartment. And of course to make it Christmassy we added some cute sisal trees. Honestly, how cute is it?

Since this is a kids party, we knew we had to have some fun activities. We found these coloring page placemats on Oriental’s website and knew that these would be perfect for our party. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any kids who were there while setting up for our party, so mom and I got to color the placemats. And Munchy helped!

Since every good party needs some snacks, we thought the coolest thing would to have a cupcake decorating station. So we have some cupcakes that we decorated with pink and green sprinkles from Oriental Trading. Who knew you could buy a whole pound of sprinkles from Oriental Trading? We also got these cute cupcake carriers from Oriental Trading. There are so many different designs of cupcake carriers so you can pick your favorites. Of course, I picked the pink chevron design! The carriers fit two cupcakes or a lot of cookies if you wanted.

The other fun activity we picked out for kids was making an ornament. We found all of the items needed on Oriental Trading’s website. We found these cute open face clear ornaments and I knew what I wanted. I found fake snow, cute deer ornaments, and some tiny sisal trees. Now, some of the deer were too big for the ornaments but the little fawns were perfect size. So with a little hot glue, we were able to glue the deer and the trees into the ornaments before pouring the fake snow in the bottom. How cute are they! And even though the ornaments may require a little adult supervision but they would be cute gifts to take home.

And that’s it! This is totally my kind of party. How fun would this be for kids, or adults? We had so much fun making everything for this party and we can’t wait to actually have a party with our nieces! So thank you to Oriental Trading for helping us set up our Kid’s Activity Party. And thank you for stopping by! See you on Monday!

Don’t forget to check out the other kids activities in the inlinkz party! And enter the giveaway below!

MEET OUR SPONSORS who have generously donated fabulous prizes for the Big Christmas Giveaway!

DecoArt winner will receive a prize package valued at $100!

Dixie Crystals/Imperial Sugar winner will receive a Keurig Coffee Maker valued at $100!

Oriental Trading winner will receive an OrientalTrading.com gift card valued at $200!

Cabot Cheese winner will receive a gift basket of Cabot products valued at $75!

Burlap Fabric winner will receive a prize pack of products valued at $50!

Zulay Kitchens winner will receive one Milk Frother and a Lemon Squeezer valued at $21

It’s Home To You winner will receive one wooden Santa sign valued at $65

Giveaway begins Nov. 8, 2019 and ends Dec. 6, 2019. Winners will be notified by December 13, 2019. Sponsors will ship each prize to the winner. There will be a total of seven winners, one for each prize. Drawing is by random selection using the Rafflecopter widget.

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