Use What You’ve Got Valentine’s Mantel

I rarely decorate for holidays other than Christmas, but this year I feel compelled to do more.  My kids are aware and excited for upcoming holidays now.  They decorate at school, and I decided it was time to start decorating at home, too.  Nothing wrong with a little festivity!  I just have one rule…it has to be free!  I don’t want to spend any money on decorations that will only be up for one week a year.

For Valentine’s Day I decorated the mantel in an explosion of red and pink.  I created the mantel-scape with things I had on hand.  I did not spend a dime to decorate.

The first step was to gather all my decor and party supplies fitting for the occasion.  In my party supply cabinet, I found pink and red paper lanterns.  The large pink lanterns were from the She’s Going to Pop baby shower.  I also pulled out one of my footed glass hurricanes (I had to remove the wooden eggs leftover from last spring).

I filled the footed hurricane with Hershey’s hugs and kisses (I may have bought extra for the XOXO Tic-Tac-Toe Valentines knowingly, so I would have leftovers for me to snack on).  Want to know my secret for a very full looking hurricane without breaking the bank on candy?  I use a cheater vase filler.  In the center of the hurricane I place a smaller glass cylinder vase.  Then, I just fill the outside with candy.  It takes half as much candy to “fill” the hurricane.

I shopped my home for decor to use.  I grabbed the Live Laugh Love sign from the bathroom.  See how I made the word art here.  I could not resist an opportunity to use my new furniture feet finials…a little shabby chic is perfect for Valentine’s Day.  I also found a footed grey bowl and a couple of mercury glass mushrooms.

I hung the Live Laugh Love art in place of our normal mantel art.  Then, I played around with everything else until I found an arrangement I liked.  To  add a last bit of dimension, I used some 3m poster strips (I keep them in my party supplies) to hang the big pink paper lanterns on either side of the art.  They add a ton of depth!

Everything was great, but the speaker was still jumping out at me.  I went back to the party supply cabinet and grabbed my trio of footed frames from Ikea.  I used a foam heart from the kids art supplies and attached it to the center frame with double-sided tape.  I printed out an I and U in Type Keys font.  A cute little I heart U to cover up the speaker!

Not too shabby for free decorating!  I think I am going to love changing up the mantel every once and awhile.

P.S. I know the “Live, Laugh, Love” quote is over-used a bit, but it has special meaning to us.  I always liked the quote and we’ve had an inexpensive version on a long white plaque hanging in every home we’ve lived in together (it’s in our current laundry room).  But it became even more special at our wedding.  The beach house we, and our whole family, stayed at for our wedding week had a plaque that said, “Live, Laugh, Love”.  My best friend, and bridesmaid, coincidentally wrapped her wedding gift to us with an ornament attached to the bow.  The silver ornament said “live, laugh, love”.  We have hung it on our Christmas tree ever since.  Anyway, that is the reason I chose that phrase for my DIY word art.