Valentine Lollipop Bouquet!

Isn't it the cutest?! Forget roses that die. I want my flowers made out of sugary sweetness!


Want to make your own bouquet for your Valentine? Here's what you need:

Lollipops (you can get boxes of Tootsie Pops or Blow Pops at Wal-Mart in the Valentine section)

Floral foam (mine came in a pack of 4 from Dollar Tree. These were the perfect size)

Cupcake liners (mine came from Hobby Lobby)

Flower Pot (from the garden section at Wal-Mart)

Paper shreds (Dollar Tree)

Green Duck Tape (Hobby Lobby)

Wire (I used 24 gage beading wire from Wal-Mart)

Hole punch

You need 1 lollipop and 6 cupcake liners per flower. First, take your cupcake liners and fold them all in half.

On two cupcake liners, you're going to use your hole punch and punch a hole on the fold.

On the remaining 4 liners, punch a hole slightly above the fold (approx. 1/4 inch):

Keeping these 4 cupcake liners folded in half, insert the lollipop stick into the hole. Offset each liner from the one before to create a circle around the candy portion of the lollipop.

Open the 2 remaining cupcake liners and insert them onto the lollipop stick. I like to put the wrong (non-printed) sides together. If you do this then you see the pretty printed side on the top and the bottom.

Now, we're ready for the leaves. Take a length of the duct tape (approx. 6-8") and lay it sticky side up on the table. Place a length of wire on top of the duct tape.

With another piece of tape, place the sticky sides together, sandwiching the wire between the two pieces of tape. Using scissors, cut the tape into an hourglass shape with pointed ends.

Once the leaf is cut out, you can wrap it around the lollipop stick and give it a twist to hold it tight.

Once I had a pile of 5 flowers, I was ready to move on to the flower pot.

I took some of my craft paint and painted the rim of my flowerpot. In hindsight, I should have painted the whole pot. Once I put the flowers in, you couldn't really see the rim.
Once the paint dried, I used a black Sharpie to write "Be Mine" and draw some hearts.

My floral foam bricks were pretty small, so I stuck some crumpled newspaper in the bottom of my pot first to take up some space.

Then I put in my floral foam. My brick was exactly the right size, except that it was square instead of round. No worries - the edges got shaved off as I shoved the brick in. I just brushed off the floral foam dust and was ready to continue!

To cover the ugly green floral foam I used a handful of paper shreds. I put a couple of spots of hot glue on the foam first to hold the paper shreds in place. Next came the flowers. The first one I put smack in the center. The next two went to the left and the right; the final two went in front and back.

I love the way it turned out! I'm going to have to make a couple more. Wouldn't this be a cute teacher gift?!

Valentine "XO" Letters

I'm sorely lacking in Valentine's Day decorations. After making my initial letter magnets, I thought it would be fun to make large "XOXO" letters to place on my mantle. So, off to Hobby Lobby I went.

I was initially going to buy some large chipboard letters, until I found these white letters in the "wall decor" section. They were already white, so no painting needed (bonus!) and were 50% off (double bonus!). Their regular price was $2.99

I wanted two "X" and two "O" letters. The problem was, they only had one letter "X". How is that possible? Who buys the letter "X"? (same with the chipboard letters, only one "X"). So, my "XOXO" became "XO". No extra hug and kiss for you!

Here's what you need:

letters
Modge Podge (the nectar of crafting Gods)
paintbrush
scrapbook paper
scissors
pencil

First, lay your letter on the back side of your paper, wrong side up.

Trace around the letter with your pencil.

Once you've traced your letters, cut them out with your scissors.

Put a layer of Modge Podge on the front side of your letter and then place the patterned paper on the top, smoothing out any bubbles as you go.

Once you've got the patterned paper stuck to the front of the letter, let it dry for a couple of minutes and then give the top a coat of Modge Podge.

Once the Modge Podge had dried, I took a piece of sandpaper and roughed up the edges a bit. I did this for two different reasons - it helped get rid of any paper that was hanging over the edge of the letter and it gives it a bit of character.

After I'd wiped off the dust from the sandpaper, I distressed the edges of the letter with some chalk from my scrapbook stash. You could easily do this with a bit of brown craft paint, too. (You could also have fun dressing up the letters with things like rhinestones and ribbon.)

Once that had dried, up on my mantle they went! The "O" kept wanting to roll off, so I got a bit of HandiTak to stick it on. (HandiTack is made by the same people who make Super Glue. It's a yellow putty that you can use to hang stuff up with and it removes easily leaving no residue behind. My favorite use for this stuff is to put it on the backside of pictures on the wall to keep them level)

Now, I've got a little bit of Valentine cuteness in my house!