It's no secret we go all out for Valentine's Day. I just love an excuse to celebrate! The day kicked off with a breakfast featuring homemade heart shaped buckwheat pancakes.
And it ended with dinner at Wegman's Amore restaurant.
Actually it really ended with a late showing of Deadpool. The last movie you would think of for Valentine's Day but they marketed it as that so why not?
Starbucks totally sucks me in with their marketing campaigns? Tell me there is an exclusive drink available for a limited time only and I cannot get there fast enough. The new Molten Chocolate Latte, Molten Chocolate Frappuccino, and Molten Hot Chocolate are only being served the week before Valentine's Day.
When we went to try them out (I wasn't kidding) I found a box with big coffee props that we could pose with and take pictures using the hashtag #starbucksdate
The entire campaign was around going to Starbucks for a #starbucksdate. How cute is that?
Oh and the new drinks? Delicious!
Check out the heart reusable cups they had! Oh and the Starbucks Valentine's Spotify list!
Valentine's Day is in my top five holidays to decorate for. The bright pinks and reds with hearts are just what you need in the middle of a long cold winter.
I was particularly pleased with my kitchen display.
These glittery signs came from the Dollar Tree! They make me smile every time I come home and am standing there fumbling with my keys.
A few years ago, I used my milk glass collection for my Christmas mantelscape. I like it so much I decided to use it for this year's Valentine's Day mantelscape. As you can see the collection has grown a bit since then.
I added red hearts on wire and red candles to make it look Valentiney. That chicken was all set to go.
It's such a nice way to get the colletion out to enjoy once in awhile.
I also added this cool King and Queen of Hearts playing card photo garland that I made for work. It's cute and easy to make with just some photos, a deck of cards and some ribbon.
Of course I had to do something fun with my nails for Valentine's Day. I got a manicure with Tina and had the manicurist leave my ring fingers blank so I could add a super cute Jamberry design. I love typing and looking down at the little heart candies on my nails.
Valentine's Day brought a giant heart balloon, flowers, chocolate and a pug card.
But here is how I know Aaron really knows me. For Valentine's Day he got me the new purple Limited Edition Ball Heritage Collection Jars. Pint and quart!
They say purple is the last in the series. I'm kinda bummed about that. In the past Mason jars have been made in the colors Aqua, Amber, Dark Amber, Emerald, Milk Glass, Cobalt, and Black. Purple jars are actually the result of clear jars with manganese in the glass that have been exposed to sunlight, or sometimes artificially turned purple through irradiation. I think they could still do "throwback" jars in amber and cobalt. Milk glass and black would be very cool also!
We didn't go out for a big Valentine's dinner this year. Even better we were home for the weekend and were spoiled rotten with my mom's cooking. She made us her homemade egg rolls for Valentine's Day.
And then we had bulgogi too! Lucky us!
The pug bears would like to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day. There are polar bears, panda bears, grizzly bears and koala bears. These are pug bears.
Eat your heart out, Sugar.
Soak it in, Sweetie.
The temperature was dropping even in more in Rochester so I decided to make the pugs neck warmers. I used roving instead of yarn and crocheted a simple tube to slide over their noggins. Because it's funny to put ears on something that already has ears I watched this YouTube video on how to crochet bear ears and added those too. These were quick and easy to make.
I think it's pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen.
Ridiculous.
My Christmas crafting has me on a bit of a leatherworking kick. For Valentine's Day I decided to make my peeps leather cable holders. They are perfect for wrangling iPhone power cords and earbuds. I don't know about you but I throw all my cables into my bag and they become a tangled mess. These tidy them up and are cute to boot.
I used some upcycled leather my mom thrifted for me to make the cable holders. Besides that, all I needed were snaps and the rivet setter tools. I cut each piece of leather to 2 inches by 4 and a quarter inches. I used a paper slicer for nice straight edges. The corners are rounded with a pair of scissors. Then I added the snaps with the rivet tool. To add personalization and the little heart for Valentine's Day, I branded the leather with my wood burning tool. One of my easiest gift projects and I think everyone like them. Cute AND useful!
It's well into February, but I wasn't ready to take down the candlesticks from the mantel. So I just added a couple hearts and called it a Valentine's Day mantelscape.
Aaron got me this little heart plant at Wegmans. The back says if you care for it, more little hearts will grow off of it.
They are sometimes called Sweet-Heart, Lucky Heart or Valentine Hoya but it's real name is "hoya kerrii". It's a climbing plant that can grow up to 13 feet high and even gets a bloom of tiny flowers.
I think it is a cute little plant as is, but I feel challenged to see if I can get it to grow into 12 feet tall.
I couldn't stand it anymore. I put out my Valentine's decorations a week ago.
I thought I should at least wait until February to admit it.
These wax crayon hearts have been making an appearance for over ten years now.
It helps to have a bit of pink, red and hearts brighten up the middle of a long winter.
There are some cute Valentine's t-shirts at Target. Two of them managed to come home with me.
Some of the goodies I got for Valentine's Day... a Rochester Public Market cookbook and cute spatulas. I am very excited to try something from the cook book.
I also hear rumors that there will be a food truck rodeo at the Public Market! I'll keep you apprised of that development.
For flowers I got this amazing heart orchid. Gah! So cool! I am trying my Grandma's trick of watering it by placing ice cubes in the pot to melt. It might seem like a bad idea knowing that orchids like warm conditions, but my Grandma's orchids are amazing. They look like they could walk out to the kitchen and fix themselves a snack... so I'm giving it a go!
I did put out Valentine's decorations earlier this month. Swapped out the lights in my vintage mason jars.
Heart lights in the windows.
Heart explosion in the kitchen.
Valentine's mantle with a heart tree.
Check it out! My Candy Box Picture Frame project is featured on parenting.com! Be sure to take a look at the other cool ideas for kids and Valentine's Day they have posted also.
I like that Oscar and Stewie get some notoriety!
Balloons
Flowers
Chocolate filled strawberries
A surprise!
Ooooooh
Dinner
Dessert
I think I have a Valentine's hangover.
