Around the House: Valentine's Mantle

One of the reasons why I love the house we have right now is the mantle.  There is just something about this one that makes our living room seem so cozy.  On most days, it gets a bunch of sun during the morning and early afternoon.  Of course, the day I went to take these pictures it was gloomy outside and so the pics look a bit dull.  (My old point-and-shoot doesn't help either ;-)

At the far right you can see a red heart-shaped box with our picture perched atop it.  We received it in '98 as a wedding present from a family friend living in CA at the time.  She filled the box with different shells she had collected, painted with a clear sparkly varnish (glitter ModPodge?), and attached a bail and wire so that we could use these on our Christmas tree.  She also cut out small sections of our wedding invitation and glued them on some of the ornaments.  To this day, it is one of my favorite gifts we received because it was simple and heartfelt.  So what better way to display it than on a Valentine mantle.  In the center is a little plaque I found while we were on a mini-vacation not long after my Husband came home from Iraq last year.  It reads "Grow Old With Me, The Best is Yet To Be".

 The majority of the pictures displayed are old ones from both sides of our families.  There is just something romantic about black & white or sepia tones don't you think?

 I took white satin ribbon that I have been saving from various pajama sets I've received over the years (yes, I am cheap.  Er...*thrifty, and I keep it because it just seems too good to throw away.  Oh man, that sounds like a Hoarder, doesn't it?)  and then used photo squares to attach the pink doilies.  The squares showed through the white ones so I had to go hunting in the kids' craft box for a glue stick.  I then used some old scrapbook letters I had lying around to spell out the word "FAMILY".  I would've used my Cricut but alas, it is dead at the moment.  That is a whole other post all on it's own.

 I love this picture of my husband's Grandparents during the war.  They look so in love, so young.  The shell you see here has the stamp from our RSVP card attached to it.  Yes, postage has gone up quite a bit in the past 13 years!

 The vase, flowers and Redhots all came from the Dollar Store.  Gotta love all the stuff they have for each holiday.  This particular picture is of my Grandma's brother and sister.  They were much older than her and unfortunately they both died in their mid 20s, so I never got the chance to meet them.  This is one of my favorite family photos because it looks so classic.

 I crocheted the little hearts from a tutorial I found on a great blog by the name of Wise Craft.  Click here for the link.  I only hooked the first round mainly because I liked the daintyness (is that even a word?) of the little hearts.  And because I didn't think I could actually finish them all up in time for the holiday.  These days I just have to be realistic about my time with the baby arriving soon.

The above picture reminds me of the painting American Gothic.  It is of my Great Grandparents standing on their farm in their everyday clothes.  I don't know the story of how they met but from the stories that my Dad has told me, I know that they were one of those old couples that remained in love long after they were married.  They passed away four years to the day of each other.  I feel lucky to have my Great Grandma's handwritten recipes, several of her handmade aprons and her old wooden rolling pin.  According to my Dad, she would make a pie nearly every day.  So who knows how many hundreds of pie crusts that rolling pin rolled out.  I'm sure her crust would put mine to shame ;-)

And while I'm at it, I might as well show you the light above our table.  Nothing fancy, just a few doilies with some heart stickers in the center and some wired heart garland from the Dollar Store.  Pay no attention to the burnt out light bulb.  That's real romantic huh? 

And this mirror hangs on the wall behind our table.  It looked a little plain so I used the garland I had left over and some more doilies.  Let me tell you that working with that wire garland is not easy.  It seriously has a mind of its own, twisting this way and that.

So in all, I think I probably spent about $5 for all my V-Day decorations.  The doilies, letter stickers, yarn and ribbon I already had on hand.  I'm glad to finally put some it to use.  I've been wanting to use the yarn since I picked it up the fall before last at a 1812 reenactment.  Now that I've used some of it, I think it'll go into the garage sale pile because it was a pain to work with.  Originally, I had hoped to make a scarf out of it but it is so stiff and scratchy that there is no way I want that rubbing up against my neck. 

Wow, this post ended up being a bit on the long side.  I didn't intend to go into such detail but I guess it just shows how much the little things on our mantle mean to me.  Hope you enjoyed my rambling.  I'm sure that after the Baby arrives I'll keep things short and sweet. ;-)

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