Valentine's Crafts

Normally, I'm not the pink & purple, hearts, and glitter kind of girl; but lately, it's been growing on me. I keep seeing pretty little decor for Valentine's day and going, "oooh, I like that!" So, even though I don't normally decorate or do much for February 14th, here are a couple crafts that I just had to make this year...
"Love" canvas art and "Love Birds" photo holder.

"Love" Canvas Art

You've probably seen a lot of canvases with letter stickers put on them and painted over -

they are cute and look so easy!

Well, naturally I had to make this a little different with colored letters and a white top coat of paint.

First, I started with a 12x12 inch white canvas and used acrylic paints (that I had bought forever ago and hadn't opened yet) to create abstract streaks of colors. I used the obvious "Valentine" colors, then added in some teal because I keep seeing teal and gold together and love it!

After letting the paint dry overnight, I cut out a paper heart to the size that I wanted and set it on the canvas so that I knew where to place the stickers. Lucky for me, when I went to buy stickers, there were a few sheets on clearance (stickers can be expensive!).
Even though I had enough of the four letters I needed, I wanted each "love" word to look a little different. I got creative with the other letters and numbers, using parts of a "Z", "h", "0", and "3". (Can you find them?)

It took some firm pressing to keep some of the stickers down before I started to paint over the whole canvas with white. I'm not the most patient person and brushed the paint on a bit too rough. One sticker came up and I had to wipe up the wet paint to make sure some color was still showing.
*Make sure you are gentle when applying the paint over the stickers, or it will get under them or lift them up.
I had to let it dry and paint a second coat to get it really white.
Then, I used an extra pair of tweezers to lift the stickers off while the paint was still tacky.

Next, once the canvas was completely dry, I outlined the heart area where I wanted all the gold glitter. I used a paint brush to apply glue and sprinkled lots of glitter on top. I mixed some glitter and glue together and brushed it over the rest of the canvas to create some extra sparkle.

Lastly, I sprayed over the whole canvas with a high-gloss spray; this helped to hide some of the brush strokes and smoothed out the letters.

This craft would be just as nice on a wood block or as a pallet art project!
Use lyrics from your favorite love song or add an anniversary date to make it extra special. Mine makes me think of the Beatles song lyrics.

"Love Birds" Photo Holder

This is the easier of the two crafts - that is, if you have the right size wood block lying around; I happened to have this piece that I just had to saw about four inches off. If you don't have any wood handy, you can probably find some nice shapes and sizes at your craft store; or head over to the hardware store and ask them to cut a piece for you.

I had the "love birds" fabric left over from some baby burp cloths that I'd made for my cousin last year, and thought it was perfect for Valentine's decor too! I aligned it just so to get the hearts and birds where you could still see them around the picture, then cut the fabric slightly smaller than the wood piece. Using ModPodge (that I found at the Dollar Store!), I glued the fabric down and applied another layer over the top.
The ModPodge dried overnight; I glued on the mini clothespin and went to work. When I got home, the photo holder was ready for display!

Instead of fabric, you could use scrapbook paper, newspaper or a magazine page, or even just paint the block!

This was another photocraft that I kept seeing and just had to try out. Are you ready to make your own now? What are some craft projects that you've been wanting to do?

Even if you aren't the type to care much for Valentine's Day, I hope you all feel lots of love this year!