Ah, Valentine’s day. The holiday for celebrating romance. All of us have seen flowers, chocolates and cuddly stuffed toys given as gifts this season. If you are now living with your special someone, be it a spouse or a boyfriend, why not try a more artistic and intimate gift – something you can decorate your home with? Ignite the romantic vibe this time of the year by creating DIY Valentine’s Day decorations. Here are some brilliant ideas with instructions on how to create them:
Fresh Flower Wall
What would be the perfect decoration during Valentine’s Day, except for hearts? Flowers, of course! If you’re hosting Valentine’s Day party, try decorating a wall with rows of real, fresh flowers to make a lovely photo booth backdrop.
Procedure:
- Get a bunch of fresh roses and ranunculus in different colors. But if you want a classier effect, get both roses and ranunculus in pink and red colors. The number of flowers you need depends on how much wall space you want to be covered.
- Strip the flowers’ stems of extra leaves and cut to desired lengths. You may leave just one or two leaves for added texture and color. You can cut them to varying lengths so the flowers would not go side by side. Spray them with water as you work to help keep moisture.
- On the wall, measure how far apart you would like the rows of flowers to be. Mark it with tape or pencil.
- Now, it’s time to place the flowers on the wall using washi tapes (preferably with colors close to the color of the flowers). Start at the top of the wall, or the topmost part you want to be covered. Tape the stem – on the part close to the top of the flower – by creating a narrow ‘x’ using washi tape to help hold the flowers with more stability.
- Tape another one, with the top of the next flower reaching the end of the stem of taped one, to form a straight line. Repeat until you have made rows of flower lines.
Canvas Heart Art
Make a Valentine’s Day project you can do with your kids by creating a feature wall full of hearts on canvas. It’s fun, easy and simple, plus it gives you a lot of leeway for your creative options! All you need is around 6 to 10 small canvasses (you can buy a pack of 8”x10” canvasses) and decorative items like heart doilies, red yarns, foam hearts, glitter, crepe paper, pompoms, and fake flowers.
Procedure:
- Cut out a heart template on a piece of paper to ensure all the hearts will be of the same size. If you are going to use pre-made heart doilies that are perfectly big enough to fit the canvas, you may create a heart template as big as those.
- Measure where you want to place the heart on each canvas using the heart template. Trace lightly using a pencil.
- Start filling your heart outlines with any material you want. It’s better if you choose different art materials for every canvas. These are some suggestions:
- Heart doilies – Just tape or glue them on to the canvas
- Foam heart stickers – Stick them on to the canvas while filling the outline
- Glitter – Spread an even layer of glue within the heart outline using a small brush. Sprinkle one color of glitter (preferably pink or red) then let dry.
- Fake flowers – Clip them off their stem and then use a glue gun to stick them around the heart outline. You may leave it like this or you may work on gluing more flowers to fill up the middle of the heart.
- Pompoms – Like the flowers, use a glue gun to make pompoms stick to the canvas. Workaround the outline and then fill the heart. You may use pompoms in red, pink and white, and scatter them randomly for a diversely colored heart.
- Crepe paper – Cut 2-inch strips of paper then scrunch them into little balls. Then, apply some glue to the heart outline and stick the paper balls on. You may fill the whole heart if you want, but making more paper balls can be tiresome for the hands.
- Yarn – Run a line of glue around the outline of the heart then press the yarn into it. Repeat until you reach the most middle portion of the heart.
- Hang your creations on the wall, keeping them grouped together like in a gallery wall.
Heart Glitter Votives
Candles make a perfect decoration for Valentine’s dinner or in a lovers’ bedroom and bath to set the mood for romance. Level up the candle game with glittery votives especially made for that special night. Get crafty with glitters and mason jars.
Procedure:
- Get a painter’s tape and a heart cutout (you may use foam hearts). Stick the heart with painter’s tape to the mason jar.
- Paint the jar with white paint and remove the tape heart. Let it completely dry.
- Using a paintbrush, spread glue above the white paint. Be careful not to put some glue beyond the heart shape.
- Generously sprinkle some white glitter evenly to the jar. Let it dry.
- Add a bow and a ribbon on the upper portion to finish it off. Then, you can put a candle in the jar to enjoy and admire.
- Do it again with other mason jars, using other colors or paint and glitter.
3D Heart Wall Hanging
If you’re gathering some friends or family for your Valentine ’s Day celebration, put up a 3D heart wall hanging on the dining area to grab their attention. Use chicken wire, wood poles, red paper napkins, and a nail gun to create this dramatic backdrop.
Procedure:
- Cut the wood poles to your preferred lengths and nail them together to form a frame. It can be at least two feet wide and long but don’t be afraid to make a bigger one.
- Wrap the chicken wire across the frame and secure it to place using a staple gun. The stapled area would serve as the back of your backdrop.
- Grab some red napkins. Open up each one and shape them into a V-shaped flare – just like that of a badminton shuttlecock.
- Tuck the point of the napkin into the chicken wire. Fold the tip of the napkin into itself and secure it with a little glue. Start tucking to form a heart outline at first, then add as many napkins as needed to fill the heart shape.
- Hang your creation on the wall above your buffet table. You may even use the frame for other occasions – you can just remove the red napkins and replace it with other decorative items as needed.
Kiss Art Decoration
Doing this art project might feel a bit ridiculous, but you can be so sure that is made with love! It’s also a surefire way to brighten up your walls or your tabletops pretty easily, in a manner that is almost impossible to mess up. Use 5 lipsticks from your lipstick collection – it’s better if you stick within a single color spectrum (pinks, mauves, browns, etc.) – but be sure to include one pale or nude color and one very dark color, and none of the colors should look a lot similar.
Procedure:
- Get a smooth white artboard. Using masking tape, secure the artboard it into cardboard that is a couple inches bigger on all sides (this is where you would hold the art so that the paper won’t get fingerprints). Make sure your artboard fits perfectly in your chosen picture frame, where you will display your finished product.
- Apply your lightest lipstick in a thick coat. Pucker up, then kiss the paper on the center. Kiss the other parts of the paper to spread out the kisses, and see how much color is left on after each kiss. Reapply lipstick as needed, and then scatter kisses again. Don’t fill up the paper– you have four more lipstick shades to use.
- Wipe your lips with tissues then apply the next darkest color. Remember, you must apply lipstick and kiss from the lightest to the darkest shade.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have used up all five colors, and until you are happy with the variety and color on the artboard.
- Gently remove the tape and place the artboard in the frame. Depending on the frame you choose, you may hang it on the wall or place it on a tabletop – on your nightstand, on your spouse’s home office or on any flat surface you can decorate with.
Valentine’s Day Dinner Table
During Valentine’s Day, lots of hotels and restaurants are loaded with couples celebrating the occasion. Well, you don’t have to take your significant other to fancy places for you to have a romantic date night. You can create your own, personalized, romantic dinner setting at home. Buy some V-day cupcakes (or bake them on your own), bring out your wine glasses and small pillar candles, and get a bunch of red roses to create this sweet dinner setting.
Procedure:
- Using a chalkboard scrapbook paper, create a table runner for the center of your table. Lay the pieces of chalkboard paper out to the length you want, and then tape them together on the back.
- Lay down the cupcakes on the table runner. Then, place the wine glasses upside down, with one cupcake under each wine glass.
- Place the candles on top of each upside down wine glasses. You can decorate your candles with red ribbon or washi tapes with hearts (wrapped/taped around) to suit the occasion.
- Using chalk, write sweet little messages on the spaces left on the chalkboard “table runner” dedicated to your date.
- Scatter your rose flowers on the remaining spaces on top of the table runner. You can also use the roses to fill the spaces between the wine glasses. Or, if you have a clear and narrow vase, place your roses there to serve as the main centerpiece.
- Serve your dinner and light up the candles. Enjoy your romantic dinner with your significant other!
Heart Softies Banner
Dress up your entry table, buffet table or even your headboard with no other than hearts – made soft and fluffy! You can do this project with your kids, especially if they already learned how to sew in their Home Ec classes. Yes, making a softy banner needs simple sewing skills.
Procedure:
- Choose some fabric of choice. It’s best to choose those with pinks or reds dominating the color or pattern.
- Cut out a heart on a piece of paper to serve as a template. It could be of any size, but make sure it can contain enough space to sew on and put stuff in.
- Using the paper cutout as a guide, cut two heart shapes on the fabric.
- Lay one fabric heart, the wrong side up, on the table. Put some batting or stuffing on top of it.
- Place the second fabric heart on top of the stuffing, right side up.
- Pin around the heart, securing the two layers of fabric together with the stuffing in place.
- Sew all around the edges of the fabric heart, leaving at least 1/8” seam allowance.
- Repeat steps 3-7 until you have made enough heart softies to make a banner. (Alternative procedure: Sew the two fabric hearts together before you put stuff inside. Just leave a small opening it fills it with the stuffing, and then close it up as you continue sewing.)
- Sew the uppermost right and left a portion of the heart softies into a ribbon. Leave enough space in between the hearts so that the banner won’t be too rigid. The side where the hearts are sewn to the ribbon will serve as the back side of the banner.
- Place the heart softies banner anywhere you like, with right side facing up.
String Heart
Create your own accent wall décor for your living room or bedroom by making a strong heart. This décor may stay in your room even after Valentine’s season has ended because hearts are forever. To create this easy display, you only need a piece of wood, spray paint, nails, and string, which will make up the heart.
Procedure:
- Choose a square piece of wood – the bigger, the more dramatic your craft will be. Spray paint it with a dark neutral color. It may be dark brown, dark gray or black or anything dark that can make the color of your string pop. Let it dry completely.
- Cover the sprayed side of the wood with wide, white paper. Tape the paper on the back side of the wood. Draw a heart shape on the paper. Don’t worry, this will serve as an outline only.
- Get your hammer and nail around the entire outline of the heart. Give one-inch space for every nail. Also, you must use nails with a decent head so the string won’t pop off out of it.
- Once the heart nail outline is complete, remove the white paper and throw it out.
- Now, you can finally create the string heart. Get your string, then tie a knot around the head of one of the nails. String it unto another nail, string it to the other one, and keep stringing all over. There is no right or wrong way to do this; just keep stringing until you are pleased with the pattern you created. (By the way, choose a red or a pink string). But it would be better if your string along the outline to make the heart shape pop better.
- Hang it on the wall on top of your sofa or bed. Enjoy!