Valentine's Ideas #1

I'm going to be posting a few Valentine's craft/decor ideas over the next couple weeks.

The first was inspired by the new Garnet Hill catalog.  In several of their layouts they used flowers  fashioned from newspapers (or perhaps pages from a book) as props.  I loved how it looked and decided to make some of my own, with a Valentine twist.

materials you'll need:

newspaper/book pages
scissors
hot glue
branches/sticks
tool with a sharp tip
ribbon and other embellishments
rocks/vase fillers
2 small plant pots
galvanized metal

To fashion the flowers, I cut one long newspaper page in half (width-wise) and rounded all the corners.  gathered it up from the middle of the page and twisted the paper a bit to give me something to hold onto while I attached to the branch.

Then I pierced the center of the flower with my branch, coming through the paper about an inch, and secured it with just a dab of hot glue above and below the flower (to keep it from sliding down the branch).  I covered up the base of the flower (and dab of hot glue) with a little ribbon - just wrapped it a round a few times and secured with more hot glue.  I also tied a piece on for show and attached a felt heart.

To display the flowers I anchored them in some small planting pots I got from IKEA with rocks.  And I attached a piece of galvanized metal to the front of a pot holder/planter that has the words "be mine" etched into it.  I used a bamboo skewer to write with.  Then to bring out the "be mine" I rubbed a little black shoe polish on.  Which also gave it a slightly aged look.

Really easy project, took me about 10 minutes to whip up!  Enjoy!