Valentines love.....

About a month ago, I was in our local Hobby Lobby Store and I got an idea for this wreath. I love to walk through Hobby Lobby for ideas and I'm known to be spotted there at least once a week. I was shopping with my friend Valerie this time and we were looking at the Valentine Decorations. There was a wreath that was really cute but had been damaged. It was similar to this one but it was made out of rolled wood to make the "rosettes". l looked at it for a minute and said to her that I bet it would be cute to make that out of pages from old books. I had seen similar ones in a traditional round shape but a heart shape was perfect for Valentine's Day.

To make the flowers I did google the best way to make them and I found an awesome Tutorial here. She gives step by step instructions with pictures. :) Thanks Stephanie for inspiration and Hobby Lobby!!!

I bought books at Goodwill for 50 cents to make the flowers with. The wreath took about 250 sheets out a book to make all the flowers to cover the wreath form. The heart form was hard to find in sytrofoam so I used a straw form from Michaels instead. This wasn't my preference but it what was available. I did wrap the wreath in a leopard print ribbon to hold all the straw in because it was coming out all over the place. The ribbon helped keep the shape of the wreath too. Made lots and lots of rosettes. I added a bit of Bling to the wreath by adding glitter to the paper rosettes. I was going to use some homemade glass glitter from ornaments but it really had some sharp edges so I opted for some chunky red glitter from the craft isle at Michaels. I used glitter glue from Martha Stewart to hold the glitter. That stuff is great for holding glitter in place and it even has a brush built in the lid. Once all the rosettes had been glued down, I sprayed the entire wreath with lacquer several times. I thought that would help keep the glitter from falling off and protect it from the weather.

Close up of the rosettes. Please excuse the glue strings. I didn't even really notice till I loaded the pictures on here.

I do have a love/hate relationship with this project.

I love it hanging on my door!!

I love the flowers are made from old romance books ( not that anyone would know that!!!)

I love that I did complete it before Valentine's Day!!

I loved playing in glitter!!!

I loved working on it with my friend Valerie. (She made a super cute one too!!!)

I hate that it took forever to make all those flowers. I am an instant gratification kinda girl!!!
(brighter note: I did make them while watching my favorite TV shows and I did get a rhythm to making them.)

I hated cleaning up all the red glitter!! It was everywhere!!!!

I hate all the burns from hot glue that I got. Even said a few bad words on that ;)

Enjoy!!!

♥

Happy Crafting!!!

Andrea