My Darling Valentine

I simply love to SWOON about Valentine's Day.  I love everything about it.  I don't care if it is a "Hallmark Holiday" I just love it.  The colors, the sweets, the decor, the fun gifts, and just another excuse to express my love to those around me which I LOVE LOVE LOVEEEEEEEEEEEE to do!!  My darling husband just moved into a new office where he works and it's really blank.  So I've been working on a few things to spruce up his space and make it warm and inviting. 

I found this wall hanging a long time ago in the clearance section at Homegoods.  I think it might have been $1 as whatever was on it originally had fallen off but the hanging was very sturdy.   

Not to mention that I LOVED the sentiment!!!

 I have had a picture of my husband and I from the summer that I absolutely adore so I knew I was going to use that.  I also purchased some of my new favorite acrylic paints from Martha Stewart.  I buy them at Michael's but I'm sure you can get them in lots of places.  They come in high gloss, pearl, matte, glitter and glow in the dark!  I also purchased some Sparkly Mod Podge.  Yes...I said SPARKLY Mod Podge.  The stuff ROCKS!!  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it and always keep it in my stash. 

I also just received in my newest purchases from MFT - one of which is the new Botanical Beauty Die-namic Flowers.  Talk about SWOON!!!??!?!  I cut a whole bunch using Ouchless Cardboard from Gauche Alchemy and PTI felt in Hawaiian Shores and Pure Poppy. 

Once I had all of my flowers cut I put the felt one together with twine from the Paper and Such store.  I punched a hole in all of the layers.  I doubled up on my twine and threaded it through one of the button holes on the button that I wanted to display on the front.  I then put it through every flower and threaded it through another button to anchor it in the back.  I threaded it through the other hole in the back button, up again through all of the felt flower layers and through the other hole in the button on the front.  I tied a sweet bow and set that flower aside so that I could work on my cardboard ones. 

I then set to working on my corrugated cardboard flowers.  I laid them all out on a sheet of aluminum foil and coated them generously with my sparkly Mod Podge.  Once they were dry I used a sponge applicator to literally plop the new Martha Stewart paint colors all over them.  I purposefully did this haphazardly as that is the look I was going for.

I don't have a lot of patience for the drying process so once I had the paint colors down I zapped everything with my heat gun and got it all bubbly and dry.  I then assembled them with the help of my glue gun.  For an added scrappy effect, I took a lot of the bits and pieces of beautiful designer papers that I've been using for the last few weeks and tore them, stitched them, pleated them and distressed them and placed them all over my piece. 

Once that was done I matted and arranged the photo of my hubby and me and adhered that in place.  I added the flowers and some bling as the last bits and pieces once I made sure I had everything where I wanted it. 

Here is my finished piece for my darling husband.

Here are some close ups as it's really hard to get the full piece in frame.  Although you'll see at the end how it looks when it's hanging as I created a space in my kitchen to hang it temporarily.

Thanks for hanging in with me for this long post!!  I hope you've enjoyed peeking at my Valentine's creation as much as I enjoyed making it!!

Crafty Hugs!
Meredith