Crocheted Coffee Cozy's

 Happy Valentine's Day Everyone! 

I just woke up to big,  beautiful snow flakes floating in the air. Yes, it is February and yes,  this still excites me! I'm not quite sick of this fluffy white stuff yet, and I'm really not looking forward to the day the snow melts and we have to scoop up all the dog poop from the past 3-4 months. Yuck!

 Anyways, today I am sharing these adorable coffee cozy's I made for my friends for Valentine's Day. I already sent a few out in the mail, but everyone else is getting theirs today and I am so excited! I just love giving little gifts to make other people smile. 

**Update: These are also now available in my Etsy shop for purchase! You may click here to be sent directly to the listing.

The crochet pattern for the heart can found here. A crochet hook size E was used for the hearts.

Both the cozy and the heart use worsted weight yarn. I made up my own pattern for the actual cozy, using a size H crochet hook. Here it is:

Chain 30. Slip stitch into first chain to make a ring. before moving on, I would make sure that this will fit your coffee cup. If you crochet more loosely or more tightly, you may need to adjust this step.

Row 1: Single crochet into each chain all the way around the ring. Slip stitch into first single crochet to complete the row. 

Row 2-7: Chain 3. Double crochet all the way around the ring. Slip stitch into chain 3 to complete the row.

Row 8: Single crochet into each double crochet, all the way around the ring. Slip stitch into first single crochet to complete the row. Fasten off and weave in ends. 

And there you have it! An adorable coffee cozy. 

I can't wait to give these to all my coffee loving friends! I even stuck some of my Valentine's Day Popcorn Mix inside the cups for an extra special treat. 

Do you ever send gifts to your friends on Valentine's Day?

If so, what do you send them. I love finding new crafty, inexpensive gift ideas!

Valentine's Day Popcorn Mix

I almost always make chocolate covered Oreo's or Prolo's to send to friends this time of year. But this year, I decided to be a little more creative.  

I'm usually not one to like a bunch of random stuff mixed with my popcorn, but as a popcorn fanatic I must tell you, this stuff is amazing! It is very easy to make and its a quick treat to package up for friends for Valentine's Day!

INGREDIENTS:

popcorn, pretzels, melted white chocolate, and melted milk chocolate, sprinkles, and m&m's.

I even thought about throwing in some peanuts... yum!

1. First, pop your popcorn and lay it on a baking sheet. Add in pretzels.

2. Then, melt the white chocolate and pour it on top of the popcorn, mix well.

3. Add sprinkles and m&m's

4. Melt the milk chocolate and drizzle it over the mixture.

5. Let cool, then eat the whole cookie sheet. 

(just kidding...maybe...) 

What kinds of valentine's day treats do you make?

Send them my way :)

Heart Garland

If you saw my Photo An Hour post, then you probably already saw that I was making heart garland. I'm kind of becoming obsessed with paper garland, and now that I have a bulletin board to easily string it from, it's getting worse. 

It is so simple to make! I used my cricut to cut out 1inch red hearts and then set the through the sewing machine one by one. I used about 300 hearts and I think it ended up being around 15feet long. 

I think the garland would look great in mixture of colors as well. I might make another one with red, pink, and white. We'll see! 

I feel like such a slacker this year. Valentine's Day is a week away and I have yet to get out all of my decorations! I meant to last weekend, but between a broken furnace, homework, and the Super Bowl I was a bit busy. Oh well, that's what this weekend is for! 

HAPPY FRIDAY!!

Chevron Heart Door Hanger

This project has two of my favorite things: chevron and burlap, so it's no wonder why I love it so much! Especially hanging against our teal door (which yes, badly needs a new paint job). This project was very inexpensive. I think I paid $1.50 for the heart after my 50% off coupon, and 50 cents for the ink paint. The rest of the supplies I had on hand.

in order to make this, you'll need:

wood heart, twine, burlap, paint, hot glue gun, chevron pattern, painter's tape

I first painted a few layers of white onto the heart. When that dried, I used this pattern from Billie Monster to create my chevron design. Then I used the pink paint to fill in, I did this twice to be certain the pink was bright enough. 

When the paint was dry, I peeled off the painter's tape and hot glued the burlap bow and twine to the back for hanging. 

To tie a perfect looking bow, I found this tutorial from the Southern Mess blog.

I couldn't wait to hang this on my door, so I headed out in the freezing cold temperatures in the middle of a snowstorm to hang it and take these pictures. But doesn't it look like it was a warm sunny day?

I am the last person to be complaining about the snow. I actually love that we've had snow on the ground since November, but even I'm starting to dream of warmer temperatures. Especially since our furnace died this weekend and it was a cool, crisp 57 degrees in here this morning. Yikes! 

Happy February!

Did you bust out your valentine's decorations this weekend? I had every intention but just never got around to it! 

DIY Candle Holder

This Valentine's Day, I was trying to come up with something fun and unique to hold candles. After scrounging through what I had in the basement, I came up with this quick and easy candle holder. 

I grabbed a large glass vase I had in the basement and stuck a smaller vase inside it. Then, I filled the space between the two vases with conversation hearts. Lastly, I stuck a candle inside the smaller vase.

I love seeing the light from the candle illuminate through the hearts, making it glow.

While I chose to do this with conversation hearts for valentine's day, you could substitute for split peas (st patty's), coffee beans or wine corks. The possibilities are endless!

What will you be filling your new candle holder with?

Ombre Heart Frame

Crafting is my favorite way to avoid doing any sort of school work. Why study when I can make fun things? So Sunday when I should have been memorizing origins and insertions of muscles in the arm, I decided to make an ombre heart frame instead.

I hopped in the car and ran into Home Depot before they closed. (Note to self: not a good time to go sneak dozens of paint samples, the workers are all watching). I slyly grabbed the few samples that I needed and came home to begin working. My new cricut (that I have hardly been able to find time to use) made this whole project SOO easy. I simply stuck the paint samples in, and out came my beautiful hearts.

I used photo stickers to stick each heart onto white cardstock, grabbed a frame, and BAM! Done! Such a quick, easy, and cheap project to add a little more decor to the house. 

Has anyone else whipped up some quick and easy projects for this Valentine's Day! Man, it sure did sneak up quick this year!

Tutorial: Love Blocks

Another one of my favorite Valentine's Day projects from last year are these fun "love" blocks. They were so easy to make, I ended up doing some for almost every holiday. 

what you will need:

a 2x4 piece of wood, spray paint, scrapbook paper and cardstock, ribbon, modpodge, glue gun

I let Adam have a little fun with this one and cut the 2x4 into four pieces: one 6in block, two 7in blocks, and one 8in block. I gave each piece of wood a few coats of black spray paint and sanded the sides.

To make the letters, I picked a font, printed it out, and traced each letter onto cardstock. Since I didn't have a fancy machine for cutting, this is what I resorts to. I cut the letters from the cardstock and they were ready to go.

Next, I traced each piece of wood onto scrapbook paper and cut them out. Using mod podge, I put the different patterned paper onto each block of wood. Another coat was used to adhere the letters, and a final coat went on top.

When that was completely dry, I added the ribbon using a glue gun. To make sure the wood blocks could easily stand, I only put ribbon along the two sides and tied them together at the top. Simple as that!

I love this project, because as I said before, you can do it for any holiday you want, or do one for your everyday decor.

Exciting news: Melanie Gets Married reached 3,000 views today!! Thanks to everyone who reads this!

Heart Wreath: Tutorial

With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, I am not sure if I will have time to make anything new (school will be kicking my butt the next few weeks!). That is the down side. The upside is that I made a few fun projects last year that I haven't showed you guys yet, yay! 

Today I will be showing you my Heart Wreath. It is one of my favorite projects, and I hope you will love it as well. 

what you will need:

wreath form, ribbon, wood hearts of all sizes, scrapbook paper, wooden circle beads (in two sizes), red paint, mod podge, gorilla glue, hot glue gun

I started by wrapping the ribbon around the wreath form. To do this, I used gorilla glue on the end and used safety pins to reinforce the hold. I wrapped the ribbon and once the wreath was completely covered, I used gorilla glue and pins to finish the other end. 

When that was finished, I began tracing hearts onto the scrapbook paper, mixing up the shapes and sizes for each paper pattern. (It is important that you do this as one of your first steps. Once you paint your hearts, you will not be able to trace them until they are dry.)

Once all the hearts were traced, I began painting the hearts. Since it will end up being 3D, I made sure to cover both sides with the red paint. 

While I waited for my paint to dry, I cut out all the traced hearts so they would be ready to go.

When the paint dried, I glued the wooden beads onto the backs of the hearts using gorilla glue. I made sure to have some flat hearts (no beads on the back), as well as a variety of both bead sizes to give three different heights to my wreath. You don't need to have the same amount of each, i just mixed it up at random.

When the glue was completely dry, I painted all the beads.

When all the painting was complete and dry, I used mod podge to adhere the paper hearts to the wooden hearts. First, a layer of mod podge on the wooden hearts, then add the paper hearts, and finally another layer of mod podge on the top to seal it off. Then, more waiting time for things to dry...

Finally, it was time to place the hearts on the wreath. I placed hearts all over, with no particular rhyme or reason, trying to cover as much of the wreath as possible. For this part, I used a hot glue gun which seemed to work out pretty well. I added a loop of ribbon for easy hanging to finish it off. 

What do you think?! Let me know if you plan to try this, I would love to hear all about it.

What are some of your favorite Valentine's Day decorations?

Happy Groundhogs Day!