I Mustache You a Question...

Make your very own Mustache Valentine using PicMonkey online photo editor.

Step One: make or buy a mustache. We made ours out of black, sticky-back felt. This was TERRIBLE on my scissors, but was relatively cheap and easy to do.

Step Two: have a photo shoot.

Go ahead and include the little sister while you are at it. 

Step Three: pick your favorite picture and head to www.picmonkey.com. Hover over the "Design" button and select the custom size. Enter 1800 x 1200 for printing to a 4x6 print. If you accidentally click the button without hovering first and selecting custom size, select "Resize" in the options on the left of the new screen to change the size to 1800 x 1200.

Step Four: click Canvas Color and select the background color you want. 

Step Five: click Overlay in the far left menu (a butterfly icon). Click "Your Own" in the 2nd column menu and upload the picture you chose. Drag and the drop the image where you want it, resizing by dragging the corner or sides of the image as needed. 

Step Six: if you want to add a frame, click Frames in the far left menu (a little frame icon). Select the frame you want. 

Step Seven: click Text on the far left menu (a Tt icon). Choose your starting font. You can select the ones that PicMonkey provides or the fonts already on your computer. Type your text in the text box then resize the box as needed. You can highlight then change text color or font type as you wish.  For the heart symbol ♥, you can use Alt code 3 (press and hold the Alt button, then the "3" button, release together).   

Step Eight: Save your creation somewhere you can find it on your computer. Send it to your favorite photo lab for 4x6 prints. You can regularly find 4x6 prints for $.19 each and often can find deals for them cheaper. Tada! Easy peasy, fun Valentine. If you are feeling REALLY spunky, you can attach a fake mustache to each. 

From the MUCH younger kids you see in those pictures, we made these a few years ago. It's still one of our favorite Valentines. 

Super Simple Valentine's Day "Wreath"

As you know, we moved the first of November into our dream home. I feel blessed every day that we found such a great house and one that we could AFFORD! However, I recommend NEVER moving right at the start of holiday season. As if we had a chance of ever getting fully unpacked in a timely manner (does anyone ever actually get fully unpacked?), moving right before the holidays means a lot of boxes get stashed in corners or the basement and forgotten. And while my Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and other major holiday decor all was packed in neatly labeled boxes, the less common holidays, like Valentines, wound up having decor strewn through a myriad of randomly packed boxes from our old basement.

In other words... I can't find my Valentine's wreath for the front door. After a quick search for it and a lack of desire to conduct anything more than a quick search, I started nosing around my craft room (still also mostly in boxes) to see what I could come up with relatively quickly and easily.

First a visit to the kids' downstairs play space that is full of cardboard:

Using newspaper to get a sheet big enough, I made a heart template in the good ol' grade school style... half a heart along the fold to make it symmetrical. I didn't measure the size of the heart beforehand, but just went with what looked right to me. It wound up about 15" high. 

I traced the pattern on my cardboard. Once the outer heart was traced, I drew another heart inside it and cut both hearts out with a box cutter. This is the ONLY time I have ever liked the tile floors in my kitchen.  

At this point, I painted the heart red with basic acrylic paint. Forgot to take a picture of that step.  Since the cardboard will show through in the finished wreath, I didn't want to leave it plain. 

Time for cutting... my finished wreath took the 5 adult-size t-shirts, two bright red and three red tie-dyed left over from another project. Any combination of "Valentine's" colors would do. I just used from the arm holes down to the bottom hem.  

Cut off the bottom hem then cut strips across, about 1.5" to 2" wide. Cut these strips at each end so that you have two strips out of each circle of t-shirt fabric. Start tying. Since I had more tie-dyed shirts, my pattern was two tie-dyed strips, then one red strip. I tied the tie-dyed strips first then the red strip between them so the red sat on top a bit. I used a wider strip of red t-shirt material, cut once into one longer piece, to make the holder.  

TADA!

Not too shabby for a thrown together wreath. 

This project can also be found at the Link Party at Make It and Love It: