When it comes to Valentine’s Day (and any other romantical holiday like anniversaries and such), I usually don’t have it all together and I usually am more or less okay with that.
But this Valentine’s Day I wanted it to be different. I wanted it to be special.
After all, it isn’t every day that Katie Bower has a linky party. Oh no. Those days are hard to come by.
Oh, and it is Ken and I’s first Valentine’s Day as married kids. But that’s beside the point.
And so, that is why I found myself at 9pm on a Wednesday night crafting my little heart out.
I had gone to the thrift store (more like, gone to 5 of them) for craft ideas and ended up coming home with just one little straw wreath form for $1.99. I formulated my plan of attack in my head and gathered my supplies.
No, the wine is not optional. Get all the supplies, now, including the alcohol; no skimping.
Explanation of the mass amounts of doilies I own: I happened to have spent months and months before our wedding this August collecting these frilly beauties from thrift stores and grandmotherly friends to use at our reception, so I have many, many left over. Let’s just say that my grandmas would be right at home in this doily-saturated environment. I’ve used them a several places around the old A.P.T., like in a draped garland and in embroidery hoops in our bedroom.
I basically just stretched the doilies around the wreath form and pinned them in the back. And let me please point out that NO DOILIES WERE FATALLY HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS CRAFT. I can totally undo it all, so don’t you worry, Grandma.
I found that the 7-9 inchers worked the best, since larger ones bunched funny around the round form and smaller ones couldn’t cover as well and would have required frontal pins. Don’t make me tell you how I feel about frontal pins.
Once I covered the wreath form with doilies (I didn’t count, though I think it took me about 10-15), I realized it was still a little lacking. So I made some doily flowers using some 2-3″ doilies. All I did was stitch a circle in the middle of the doily and tightened things up as I went. If you want, you can strain your eyes looking at my example picture (below) to see how I did it…or if you’re doing this at home, just make it up as you go along like I did.
Then I realized that the thing that was lacking with this doily wreath was actually color, so I created a mini pennant banner (in ombre, of course, to fit in with trendy people) and draped that in there too. I actually think that some colored brooches would look splendid clustered where the flowers are, but all of my brooches are currently tied up in one very special brooch bouquet (that I have literally no idea what to do with, now that it’s role in my wedding has commenced).
And then I styled the whole thing and tried to take decent pictures at 10pm, and you can see how that turned out for me. Normal 8-5 jobs wreak havoc on my non-existent photography skills…if I was a stay-at-home wife, I feel confident that my photography would move into the realm of at least mediocre (up from where my skills fall right now, which is in the abysmal category).
Oh, and as for a gift for Ken?
I outsourced it. To Walgreens.
Yes, it is a photobook. Of our honeymoon (you can see awkward photos of it here if you are really that interested). I was planning on making a nice book of our wedding, but I got overwhelmed by the sheer number of photos to go through, so they remain sadly relegated to my computer files where they’ll probably stay forever.
Happy first Valentine’s Day, Ken! It’s so nice to have someone like you around to redeem “buy one, get one” specials with (and because I love you and stuff).
Planting Sequoias 