Happy Valentine's Day!!

Well, another year has come and gone! It's Valentine's Day again! It's funny to look back over the few years we've been married and see how it has evolved. The first year we were married, I tried to be a sweet wife and surprise my husband by decorating our apartment and leaving a trail of rose pedals from our front door to the bedroom. He had to work that day, so I wanted to surprise him when he came home. I will never forget, nor let him live down, that when he followed that trail of red rose pedals, and found me, the first words out of his mouth were "Who's going to clean all this up?" SERIOUSLY!? I was trying to be all cute, and that's all he could think about!=) I have learned over the years now that there are a few things that Joe really appreciates, and that he must have, in order to be happy. The first on that list, is a clean house. Every Monday is usually my cleaning, grocery shopping and laundry day. He's always so happy when he comes home on Mondays and finds that our apartment has been cleaned. He usually always expresses his appreciation too, which is nice. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that it may come across that our apartment is a mess the rest of the week. That's usually not the case. Joe is ocd about an orderly home. My parent's can attest that I have not always kept my room, car, and bathroom the cleanest. I guess what it took to help me change, was a husband who turns into a grump if the house is messy=) ha ha jk! I really did get better once we had our own place and I was the one who had to do most of the cleaning. Anyways, I'm getting off on a tangent.

Back to Valentine's Day. So, last year instead of giving Joe a heart attack by decorating again and having candles, balloons, and decor everywhere I just made a nice dinner and set the table with a few candles and rose pedals. He did much better with that=) This year, I decided I wanted to actually make decorations and decorate our house for the month of February. I've had a lot of fun, and now I can pull these out year after year. Joe actually said he likes what I've done, so that makes it even more worth it.

Here's a shot of our living room. I will zoom in on the things I made. Most all of the ideas for the things I made came from Pintrest. Gotta love it!

I have loved having shelves with decorations that I can change out with each holiday or season. I kept it simple this time and just things I had on hand so I didn't have to spend money. I had made the "LOVE" letters last year I think. I just tied ribbon around the candles, and used scrap book paper to fill the frame.

I made this sign out of scrapbook paper, ribbon, and cardboard letters. I just painted them white and glued them on.

These rose balls I made out of crepe paper. I had to make each flower individually and then glue it on to a styrofoam ball. They took FOREVER to make! I will never make them again! I love how they turned out though. The whole time I was making them Joe kept telling me he didn't like them. He didn't have my vision though=) I got the basket at hobby lobby for like 7 bucks. It was brown so I just spray painted it white. Once I got the centerpiece all done and on the table, Joe said he had to admit that he liked it. =) Good thing! I think they're fun, and totally appropriate for V-Day.

Next, I changed out the decor on our little decorative table.

I made the pink ball in the bird cage out of felt. Other than the pink and red hearts, I had all the vase fillers. The rose pedals around the candle are the ones I used two years ago to make the trail to our room. Joe appreciates them being around the candle, instead of on the floor, much more!=) The little XO heart thing was just a wooden frame from Walmart that I modge podged some scrapbook paper onto and then used little wooden letters from Hobby Lobby to put XOXO on it. The plate I had from last year. Well, there you go! All done! I love how everything turned out. Now we can celebrate the month of love in an orderly manner every year=) ha ha!

Happy Valentine's Day!!