Valentine's Photo Shoot

This is hopefully the last of the Valentine's Day posts. They are getting out of control! I just wanted to share with y'all the super cute pictures I snapped of Aidan while we were trying to capture the perfect picture for his Valentine's.  He is such a good sport and so used to having his picture taken, it only took me about 10 minutes to get these shots.  It was hard to choose which one to use on his cards because they were all cute. In the end, I let Adam choose the one we used and I am really happy with it!  I think I will have these printed and put up in his playroom.

{This is the shot we used on his cards}

{This was my favorite}



Happy Valentine's Day~Card Edition

I am finally finished with Aidan's Valentine's!  I think they turned out so cute. This is where the sign I made on Friday was put to use!  Saturday afternoon I threw on Aidan's Vday Tshirt and we headed outside to snap a few shots of him holding the sign and to make our very own Valentine Picture Cards. We gave some out to family today and even though I think they are a little biased, the reception was wonderful.  The picture turned out so well. 

And here's how we {me} made them:

I bought a pack of foam from Wal Mart. I wish they had had just a pack of red or white or even pink but they were rainbow colored. I chose to use the white and red.  First thing I did was measure the size of the sheet of foam.  I then cut it down to two 4 x 5.5 inch pieces with my craft knife.

{I seriously apologize for the quality of these pics. My camera was dying last night and did not want to focus}

I then cut 25 adorable photos of my sweet Aidan down to the same size. They were already 4 inches tall so I just cut the width down to 5.5 inches.

I then covered one side of the foam in Mod Podge.

And stuck Aidan's picture to it. After that I trimmed any edges with my craft knife.

I did the same with the red foam.

I let them dry for a bit.

While they were drying I started the next step. I bought this Valentine's kit at Wal Mart.

I picked out the hearts to use and used a white paint pen to sign Aidan's name to his cards.

and a black Sharpie for the white hearts.

Then I added the little silver ribbon that came in the kit and some of my own red polka dot ribbon to the hearts.

Then I took Mod Podge and covered the back of the hearts and glued them to the back side of the foam piece.

See?

Then I let those dry for a while.

We added little heart stickers to the bottoms of the big heart and pencils Aidan had picked out that he wanted to give his friends.

And that's how easy that was! Adam asked me how much this little project cost and it was around $20.  For 25 Valentine's? Not bad.

Aidan is so excited to go to school tomorrow and show off his cards.  I think if anyone is proud of my crafty-ness it's him! He's so worth the late hours I stay up making them.   Creating fun things like this for my kids is like a dream come true.  HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! XOXO

I am linking up to the DIY Show Off.  There are some great DIY ideas and other great Vday ideas there to check out!  Use the button in my sidebar to link there too!

Valentine's Day Sign

I have been getting Aidan's Valentine's ready for school on Monday.  Last year I made these really cute Valentine's with Teddy Grahams and loved them. This year I wanted to do something cute but different from last year because most of the same kids are in his class.  I also get nervous now sending in any type of food because so many kids in his class have allergies.  So I came up with another cute idea that I am going to reveal to you on Monday but in the meantime I wanted to show you the cute sign I made today.

Cute Right? And so simple.  This project cost me zilch.  If your like me, you have tons of craft supplies hanging around and if you really put your mind to it, you can come up with ways to put that left over stuff to use. 

I had all these chip board letters left from making diaper cakes for baby showers.  The first thing I did was make sure I had enough letters to make the sign. I knew I had two or three different fonts but that didn't bother me. I thought it added to the whimsy of the sign.  There were some blue letters but that also was no biggie because I could just paint them with white craft paint.

I skipped a few steps in the picture taking process but getting to this point is pretty easy. I had a left over cabinet filler from when we remodeled our kitchen but you can get a piece of wood for super cheap at your local home improvement store.  Most places will cut it down to the size you want. My filler is 1 inch thick, 3 inches tall and almost three feet long.  It was cherry wood colored so I threw some primer on it.  I made sure I had enough room for the entire saying.

Which I did thankfully because I was not in the mood to visit the craft store today.

I painted the primed piece black. 

Another view of the painted filler. {I would just like to give myself a shout out for keeping that back splash so clean!}

I started painting the blue letters with white craft paint.  Julie was here to take pictures. So she did.

More letter painting.

Once everything was dry, I hot glued it all to the wood, added a pink heart and then hot glued another red one with polka dots on top and Hello cute Vday sign!

 I love it! And I can't wait to show you how we used it in Aidan's Valentine's Day cards for his class!  I am thinking I will keep it out for the rest of the month and then store it away for next year! 

In other news...we have made head way on our board and batten.  The top piece is up all the way around the room and we have a ledge!

I am linking this to the DIY Show Off! You can also link to her site by clicking the button in my sidebar!