I'm MUD about you!

 

Could this be the most perfect vintage valentine of time?!

A mud puddle!  With muddy ripple eye bags!

I had to work him into some sort of valentine what-not...

I came up with doing a "mud" pie!

It's actually a peanut butter pie. I have not made one before and found a recipe online.  At this moment we haven't partaken of the mud pie so I am going to hold off with relaying the recipe until I know it's worthy! (update: not worthy! extremely bland.  Stay away from any recipes that are cream cheese, whipping cream, peanut butter, and powdered sugar)

I thought about trying to reproduce the face using icing but took the simple way out and just printed it and backed it in contact paper so the oil wouldn't seep through.  The 'grass' is green tinted coconut.

Be my muddy valentine!

Peas Be My Valentine!

Are you and your loved one "two peas in a pod"?  

Would you like for your sweetie to be your "pod-ner"?

Maybe they are your "sweet pea"?

Or maybe they have an unhealthy obsession with seeking out weird valentine's day themes that mix vegetables and valentine's day together (my hand raises)?

Then do I have a theme for you!

Forget chocolate!

Give a valentine heart shaped box of sweet peas for your sweet pea!

Cultivate your love with copious amounts of pea punned valentine cards!

And there's nothing like a bouquet of roses featuring cans of precious peas...

.....vased in vintage label inspired pea cans!

What valentine wouldn't be "peased" with this show of affection?!

If you want to impress your pod-ner for valentine's day the images I used are canned in my Pinterest "Peas Be My Valentine!" board

The quick How-to on this is to print out the images in the sizes you like.

Cover cans in the labels.

Attach the 'roses' to green pipe cleaner stems.

Make a few pom pom and felt pea pods.

Buy a box of chocolates and devour them yourself, saving the box for the peas.  Your sweet pea will understand!

Let's do our "Thing" together valentine!

This is one weird mama-jama!

I think I like it!

 

I did my "thing" by making a large sized version (from an oatmeal container) as a gift container for Valentine's day!

Just fill with things that are for you and your loved one to do your ...ahem..."thing".

I'll be a sad sack valentine

This year for Valentine's Day I decided to do several micro themes starting with this "Sad Sack"!

We all know someone that loves to be the sad-sack-wet-blanket- kill-joy right?

(Helpful Hint: They are the Anti-Valentine's Day sour pusses)

Well this is the perfect gift for them!

I started out by embellishing some mini treat sacks with little eyes and a pout made from bits of contact paper I cut out with hole punches.  The frown is actually a parenthesis from a sheet of letter stickers.

Then I started thinking... what would go in a "sad sack" as a gift....

And this is what I came up with.  Garbage like food packets, old easter candy, a dead Sunbeam battery.....tootsie rolls and free bars of crap soap from hotels are other prime items for a sad sack.

Just clean out your junk drawer and gift it to your favorite "woe is me- pity party' type in your life!

They'll love it because it will give them something to complain about on social media helping to grasp onto some of that martyrdom they love so much!

 

These are the "pre" of the sacks I used, bought from 1.25 Tree.

Valentine's Love Cats

This year for Valentine's Day decor I decided to finally tackle a theme I have been wanting to do for years!  The Cure's song Love Cats!

It's not a plunge into the lyrics or visuals from the music video or anything deep like that.  I just thought it would be fun to do a mash up kinda thing with vintage valentines of cats and The Cure (Robert Smith really!).

😻"We're so wonderfully, wonderfully, wonderfully, wonderfully, pretty!"😻  

😻"Oh, you know that I'd do anything for you"😻

😻"We should have each other for tea, huh?"😻

😻"We should have each other with cream"😻

😻"Then curl up by the fire and sleep for awhile"😻

😻"It's the grooviest thing, it's the perfect dream"😻

The Cure is one of mine and Mr. Husband's fav-o-rite bands and so I really wanted this theme to be top notch looking.  That's kinda why I had been putting it off for so long.  I only decided to do it this year (last minute actually) because I mentioned the idea to PB and he was all about it.  He is a Cats/Cure fan also!

Decor and craft break down:

So since I don't have access to free wide format printing anymore, I had to come up with another way to create a large focal wall centerpiece.  I wanted an image of Robert Smith and I thought making it like a stencil would be the easiest way to go.  There are a couple of stencils already out there in internetland but I decided that wasn't good enough.  I found a photo I liked and turned it into a black and white image and printed it as an 8x10.  I then built a projector from a cardboard box, a flashlight, and the image traced onto a piece of plastic (google DIY projector and you'll see what I'm talking about).  Well, this contraption wasn't so hot because it only helped me to put his primary features in the appropriate spots, you just can't see details. This idea then morphed into me having to do a large scale drawing. I think I did a good job on his rendering but it's just not the look I was wanting overall. The other crafty thing I made were the oversized red "Kiss Me" candy hearts.  I know, a different song, but just too perfect for Valentine's day!  I made these from some scrap styrofoam I cut into heart shapes, painted red, and added epsom salts to look like sugar crystals. 

Here are a couple of past v-tine decor:

Vintage Valentine's Day Decor

Valoween Decor

And click on the "valentines" label down below left for all my past v-tine post goodies!

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Sweetheart Rings

I love mid-century vending machine stuff.  I came across this "Sweetheart Ring" vending display card and absolutely fell in love with the illustration.  It's practically perfect in every way!  

I planned on framing it and hanging it up at Valentine's time.  But when it came in the mail I was in for a surprise.  I apparently didn't read the size of the card because this thing is micro sized...2 inch x 3 inch.  Not suitable for framing...it's like a gum wrapper!

I still wanted to come up with a way to display it so I made this mini fake vending machine:

I bought a couple of packages of cheap-o plastic rings from 1.25 Tree that have 2 colors, red and fuchsia.  I don't do fuchsia unless it's vintage 80s fashion so I popped all of those 'jewels' off.  I had even painted some of them black with nail polish but decided to just keep it simple and tossed the stripped rings in as background filler and placed the red rings up front.

I made the vending machine out of an old Christmas card box, aluminum foil, and red craft paper.

This one is more of a mock up.  I want to find a tall small square glass canister at a thrift and make something a bit more substantial.

Here is another vintage packaged "Sweetheart rings" that Mr. Husband got me.  Looks like the Mr. on the package is under witness protection.

February Coconut Cake of the Month

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February's coconut cake of the month is called "Ever-Lovin' Heart" in keeping with Valentine's Day.

I thought it was clever how the directions turned a round cake into a heart shape.  Only in the end it makes for an ugly heart shape, in my opinion.  What you see from my version is a cake that I really had to shape, far more than the instructions lead me to believe.   Even then it's a cake only a stomach can love.

 

I want your skull!

💘💀 Happy Valoween!!! 💀💘

For a sinister sweet dessert I made us skull cakes!

These little confectioneries get there shape from a skull head pan made by Wilton from Halloween several years ago.  The cake is red velvet from a mix and covered in a vanilla glaze (using this recipe).  I used a large heart sprinkle for the eye sockets, and a half one for the nasal cavity, and the teeth are red nonpareils, all by Wilton.

They tasted exceptionally delicious.  I microwaved them just a touch before serving which made the cake extra moist and the icing warm like on cinnamon rolls.

Devilishly divine!

{image source}

💘 💀 💀 💘

{The conversation heart maker didn't have enough spaces for "Halloween".   But then I thought "Halo-ween" could be the term for a Halloween themed Christmas which would then be in 315 days!}

Valoween Decor

💘👻To set the ghostly loving mood for Valoween, I crafted up some spooky desire decor!👻💘

"Just ghost to show you, I'm batty about you, Valentine!"

"Don't scare me, be my valentine!"

"I'm haunting for a Valentine.  Do I have a ghost of a chance with you?"

"Just ghost to show you, You're the one for me!"

"Valentine, I'm Imp-atient, so be mine"

"I get that devilish feeling valentine, when my heart burns for you"

"You bewitch me, Valentine"

"I feel it in my bones, you're my Valentine"

💘 💀 💘 💀 💘

Valentine's Day and Halloween are two of my favorite holidays.  It's time they were squished into a new celebration, Valoween!

There are actually quite a few vintage kid's Valentine cards out there featuring spooky love amongst creepy creatures such as skeletons, ghosts, witches, devils, bats, and monsters perfect for this new holiday.  I went with those images as my main inspiration.  I printed out a selection of these cards in small and larger sizes as the primary Valoween decor pop.

My next step in decorating was to consider what colors are typical for both holidays.  Halloween being black, orange, purple, green. and though a stretch, red.   A Valentine's Day palette is red, pink, and white.  Orange, pink, purple, and green will not work for cross over.  An orange heart or a pink pumpkin would look ridiculous.  Also I had to eliminate certain icons of Halloween such as pumpkins or jack-o-lanterns, because again, they would just look dorky in my Valoween setting.  I decided to go with the color scheme of red, white, and black along with picking symbols I thought would do well in both settings (such as ghosts, skeletons, spiders, bats, and tombstones).
I was able to pull together several items from among my Halloween decor that worked out well with the theme.
One item I incorporated into the set was a skull trick-or-treat bucket I picked up at a thrift store a few years back. It always kinda irked me that the eyes were red because I don't do red in my Halloween decorating, but it works really well as a Valoween vase of red camellias.  My blow mold ghosts which usually carry little plastic pumpkins got switched out for some plastic jelly hearts pulled off of a strand of Valentine lights. Everything Halloween got a douse of Valentine and vice versa.   I think I spent a grand total of 2.15 for the decor this year, which was for the red paper doily hearts and a pack of red glittery heart stickers, both from dollar tree.

Another theme I included was creating sets of pairs since Valentine's is usually seen as a holiday for couples.  There are pairs of spiders, ghosts, and skeletons along with even a vintage print of a human pair making out in a cemetery!

There are a ton of other vintage valentine cards that feature interesting subjects, such as cigarettes, hard boiled eggs, or mud....oh, the possibilities for future themes!

👻 💘 👻 💘 👻

{For the images I used creep over to my Spooky Love Pinterest Board}