Valentine's Gallery Art Wall (and free printable)

Until recently, I have not been one for "themed" Valentine's decor. In fact, I normally don't decorate for Valentine's Day and opt for cranberry colored winter berry decor to last from Christmas until Spring. This year, though, I have been loving book page crafts (it all started with my book page pumpkins) and decided I wanted book pages and red hearts to be my 2013 Valentine's Day theme. Considering our level of book nerdiness and the size of our library, books are especially appropriate for us.

I have a narrow wall in our downstairs half bath that was more than ready for an art update. I picked up 5 frames from the dollar store (2 8x10 size and 3 5x7 size) and got to work.

Supplies

• Frames (2 of 8x10 size and 3 of 5x7 size)
• Old book
• Glue
• Red construction paper
• Printer
• Cardstock
• Poster board ($0.50 from Dollar Tree for a huge piece)
• Permanent marker
• Embroidery thread
• Paint and paint brushes

Painted Heart

To make this one, I glued down several pages to the back of the default image paper than came in the frame.  Once it was dry, I painted a heart with watered down red acrylic paint and added some black accents. I like that the heart is see through and you can still see the words on the back side.

Cut Out "Specimen" Hearts

For this one, I printed out the lyrics of the song that was sung at our wedding (A Page is Turned by Bebo Norman - totally ties into the book nerd theme!) onto a piece of cardstock and used it for a mat. I cut some extra hearts out of the lyrics and glued them down onto a piece of red construction paper with some colored hearts (I decided on black for contrast). 

Song Lyrics Tree

This was inspired by this pin. Sadly, there is no original source - it just points to a tumblr blog. Let this be a lesson - if you're a blogger, watermark your stuff! That way if you picture becomes unmatched from the source people can find you. But I digress. The tree is another piece of cardstock with the Page is Turned lyrics on it. Then I tied red hearts onto the branch with embroidery floss. Mine is admittedly not nearly as pretty as the original but I still like it.

Pop Out Heart Art

This was inspired by this 3D Butterfly Art. I turned a book page sideways and drew hearts on the back. I cut around most of the edge, leaving a core in the middle to keep the heart attaached when folding up the sides. I slipped a piece of red construction paper in behind it and put it in the frame in front of the glass.

Printed Branch with Hearts

To make this one, I cut a piece of book paper to 5x7 and then told my printer to print the graphic as if it were a 5x7 photo. I should have reduced the amount of ink it used because it did take a little while to dry but I really like how it looks. 

If you like it, I'm sharing my printable graphic with you guys. You can try printing it on a book page like I did or onto regular cardstock for use in your valentine crafting. Click here to download the full size heart branch graphic for printing.

Thanks for stopping by!

Free Personalizable Valentine's Day Photo Cards: Family Time

If you're on the hunt for Valentine's Day photo cards for your family, look no further! The next installment in my personalizable Valentine's Day card series is perfect for photos of families. My photo happens to be in black and white but you can use a color picture for this layout, too.

It features a generously sized area for your photo, a red finger paint texture on the bottom and personalizable text. The font I used for the names is called Janda Elegant Handwriting and it is available for free.

Download the free personalizable photo card here. (4x6 size)

Name font (Janda Elegant Handwriting) available here

If this is your first time downloading one of my cards, note that you will need to register (it's free and takes literally 10 seconds) first to download the card. Then scroll down and click the download button below the file (circled in red).

Free Personalizable Valentine's Day Photo Cards: The Girly Girl

Everyone is on the hunt for adorable Valentine's Day cards...we've got just one month left! I've got a special series of personalizable photo cards I'll be posting over the next couple weeks so be sure to keep checking back!

Our first card would be perfect for the girly girl in your life. It's got a modern damask print and pretty pink text and polka dots. You can personalize both the photo and the text on the card. The font used to write the name on the card is called "odstmeplik" can can be downloaded for free.

Download the free personalizable photo card here. (4x6 size)

Name font (Odstemplik) available here

If this is your first time downloading one of my cards, note that you will need to register (it's free and takes literally 10 seconds) first to download the card. Then scroll down and click the download button below the file (circled in pink).

Organize Your Pantry with Glass Jars and Contact Paper (plus free printable!)

Has your pantry taken on a life of its own? Do you fear spaghetti night because you know as soon as you open the door to your pantry, bags and boxes will threaten to avalanche and leave you buried alive? Are you putting off organizing your pantry because you just can't afford the fancy do-dads you want to make it perfect? Make excuses no more, friends because I tamed my pantry beast for a paltry $1.

I had tons of different bags of bulk foods, boxes open and half full crammed onto my shelves and precariously perched on top of each other. It. was. ugly. No, there are no before shots (you don't really want to see them anyway).

But the after is so nice. Everything has a place and most things have a label:

My favorite labels, of course are the pretty, swirly ones on the top shelf (which is actually the second shelf...the top shelf just has cereal boxes and a large jar of oatmeal). All I had to do was trace the template shapes onto the back of some white contact paper from the dollar store, cut them out and label them with a permanent marker.

Where'd I get all the jars?

I started using just extra quart size canning jars. Anything that was in a bag in the pantry but could fit in the quart jars went in. I also saved all of my glass jars from store bought foods for several months to build my collection. I just soaked off the label, gave it a good scrub and gave it a new home in my pantry. I did eventually purchase some large 1.5 gallon and half gallon jars but most of the jars are re-purposed food jars.

Why not chalkboard labels?

With chalkboard stuff everywhere, there was a temptation to try and make these chalkboard style. I'd seen a tutorial online of someone who had just painted contact paper with chalkboard paint to make chalkboard labels. And I thought about it. But at the end of the day, it was just a lot more work than I wanted to put into this project. 

What if I change what's in the jars?

That's the beauty of contact paper! The contact paper just peels right off. I actually cut out a small stack of extra labels so if I switch out the contents of a jar, I can just peel the old label off and put a new one on. Tracing and cutting out the extra labels was way less work than painting a whole roll of contact paper with chalkboard paint (plus, no need to worry if it will flake or chip off later).

(if there was extra contact paper not big enough to make a label, I cut it into a square or rectangle to copy down things like cooking times or instructions and put it on the back of the jar)

If you're itching to organize your pantry, too, save some time and download my free printable label template instead of having to find the shapes yourself. There are a whole range of sizes so you can pick one that's the right size for your jar.

Download the FREE Printable Label Templates Here

(if you are reading this via e-mail or RSS feed, you may need to click through to the post on my blog in order to download the labels)