I've always felt awkward when it came to this holiday; something about gushing over your partner and sitting there while they gushed over you made me not want to go "all out" for this holiday. I suppose it's stemmed from those elementary school years when we handed out valentines to everybody in class and if you were lucky enough to be "with" someone that year, you expected and got something extra. It was 6th grade when I was given one of those extra large Hershey's kisses, a flower, and a stuffed animal from a red-headed boy I crushed on. I was on top of the world! But it wasn't long before I was being put down in front of my peers and getting snickers and jeers about it. I then couldn't enjoy the gifts I received and actually felt guilty and 'bad' about having them! Were they kids being kids? Maybe. Retrospectively, I think they were jealous and that was their best way to deal with it. Either way, I clearly still recall this memory as if it were yesterday and perhaps this is the reason why, when I receive gifts of any sort on this holiday, I love it but receive it with a grain of salt... awaiting some unplanned moment of disappointment.
So now that I've depressed you...! (Ha ha!) In all sincerity, I've since enjoyed this day once I started dating men for whom I was on the hunt for "marriage potential". Now that I'm married to a wonderful and loving man, I suspect I will be more and more involved in celebrating this (very commercialized) holiday.
Around the Internet, craft stores, and neighbor's doors, I've noticed that wreaths have been a go-to form of celebrating all holidays and seasons in the year. I saw a lot of beautiful wreaths for fall and Christmas but I was in no position to attempt an art project I had zero experience in. However, I want to learn and I want to practice making wreaths because -darn it- I want to make some pretty awesome fall/winter wreaths this year!
So here is my Valentine's Day wreath, made by moi!
I bought 2 of the larger Dollar Tree wreaths (shown below), unwrapped one of them and then re-wrapped the branches around the 2nd wreath to make it appear heartier.
After the wreath was dried, I gathered the fake flowers I got from both the Dollar Tree and Michaels and arranged them on the wreath. I cut the stems so I could easily push them through the wreath and wrap to hold in place. I glue-gunned excess leaves to fill it out and give pops of green. Then I painted the 'love' plaque I bought from Michaels red and hot-glued it to the wreath. Done!
Aside from the few days it took to get the staining right, all the arranging and hot-gluing only took a couple hours and was hung up on the door well before my hubby came home from work <3
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