Valentine's Day 2014

This year we had a really nice, low key Valentine's Day. While I want to say that Tim and I never "go all out" for Valentine's Day, when I sat down to write this post I realized we have had a few exciting Valentines in our history together.

On Valentine's Day 2010, Tim asked me to marry him.

Last year, we announced to our family that we were expecting.

This year, we have a beautiful little girl!

Photo by Constance Avellino Photography 

Since Valentine's Day was on a Friday this year, we decided to stay in and make fondue at home. We LOVE Melting Pot but unfortunately it gets expensive! So I made a cheese trio with baguette and green apple. We also shared a shrimp cocktail. A few hours later, we had chocolate fondue with sliced banana, strawberries and red velvet cake.

Tim and I previously decided that we would not exchange gifts this year. However, a few days ago I decided to make a last minute gift for Tim. It's rather popular on Pinterest so I can't take credit for the creativity on this one!
 Basically, its "52 Things I Love about You" the whole project cost $4. All you need is a deck of cards, some embellishments, a whole punch and some glue.  I had the HARDEST time finding regular old red playing cards. I check the Dollar Tree, Party City, Publix and Target... no one has red! I ended up finding this back of pink/black cards at Target and I am so sick of looking for cards that I decided they would work.

I started by hole- punching all of my cards. I typed up all of my "52 things" into a word document. I just made a table 4 wide by 4 long and they fit perfectly onto the cards. I used black font with a red outline. I did print them on card stock to make them a but sturdier.

 I just mainly stickers to embellish the cards. I picked up a few different packs for .99 at CVS. I glued all 52 things onto my cards and then embellished them. I used a regular old Elmer's glue stick. I had planned on using Mod Podge but mine was tried up. I did not keep the same placement on each of the cards but varied them so that I could fit some of the larger stickers on the cards.

After every thing was dried, I assembled my "book". I could not find binder rings at Target so I simply used some black ribbon to hold the book together. Here is what the final product looked like.

 

The hardest part of this project was coming up with the 52 things! Obviously, there are more than 52 things that I love about my husband however,  you don't often sit down to write them all out! I tried to use a good mix of serious things and jokes between us. Here are a few examples in case you are struggling too!

Tim seemed to really like the gift! He says he is "working on" my list ;)

We also made the grandparents Valentines this year since it was Charlotte's first. We had professional pictures taken the last week of January. We simply purchased two 8x10 frames ( Buy one get one for $1 at Kohls). Then I used a small sponge applicator to apply red paint on her feet to make the V in Love. We used Crayola Tempera paint because it is nontoxic, washable and generally baby safe. I added one of the professional pictures and a few stickers to the frame. The grandparents LOVED them :)

 

Oh and while I was at CVS picking up stickers, I grabbed a tube of red lipstick for 99 cents with the sole purpose of capturing this shot...

Because what is cuter than a chubby baby covered in kisses?

Hope you too had a great Valentine's Day!