It's A Valentine's Day Craft Haul, Y'all! (And "The Bet")

Hey there!

We've put away the holiday items and now we are ready to pull out the Valentine's Day decorations!

I know. We have a whole month before Valentine's Day which means we only have a month before Valentine's Day! We have cards to make, decorations to prepare, even food to shop for. I try to live seasonally so that means my mind wouldn't rest until I took this past weekend to, among other things, get ready for the day of St. Valentine of Terni. That means shopping!

I always start my seasonal paper crafting trips with a trip to my local scrapbook store. The ladies there know me and there are certain supplies I always get there. I like to get 1 or 2 specialty stamps there. I like the unmounted stamps that they have because they are so unique. This year I picked up my main "Happy Valentine's Day" stamp from them. It's in 3 different fonts and the perfect size for card making.

Besides my Scor-tape, and stamps. I love picking special pieces of paper from their store. I don't order paper from the online stores because I have to touch and see my paper. I have to know that the colors are blowing me away and that the patterns are ones that I just can't live without.

For my Valentine's Day decorations, I picked up 2 pieces of shiny hot fuchsia paper called "Italian Beauty Pink". Argggggg! Is this not the prettiest pink paper you have ever seen? I'd have never picked that up from an online website. I also picked up a sheet of cutouts from the PhotoPlay, So Loved collection. These will make such pretty Valentine's Day cards or framed cards or even extra pages in my planner. I only picked up one sheet because....

... I have several sheets in my Valentine's Day Paper Pad from Recollections! You guys know that I always get 1 or 2 paper pads for the season to create cards, gifts, photo albums, etc. This year I went with just one paper pad. I walked the aisles of Michael's until I decided this was the one I couldn't live without. It's full of pink and red pages and some foiled and patterned pages. I just drooled over all the crafty ideas that popped into my head when I saw this paper pad. It has 2 different cutout pages for cards and such so in total (because each paper pad has 2 of each page) I have 5 cutout pages to craft with. I'm so excited.

While I was in Michael's, I picked up just one other item for crafting. Something that you will ALWAYS see in my craft box are foam pieces and stickers. This pack of foam stickers jumped into my basket as soon as I walked into the store. I has plain pink, white, purple and red hearts and then glittery pink, white, purple and red hearts. There are also "Love" stickers and letters. I liked this bag of stickers because of the addition of purple. I like Valentines crafts but I quickly get burned out on just red and pink. Purple makes a lovely addition.

On my way back from Michaels, I ran into Hobby Lobby and perused their Valentines shelves. They had a lot of home items but not many crafty project things that I wanted. I settled for these cute heart dollies and love, arrow and heart flatbacks. Flatbacks are like buttons, without the hook piece on the back. You can use these for cards or paper crafts. I like using them when I make my own binders or paperclips. I also added some fuchsia ink to my arsenal. I have plenty of inks for stamping images but when I want to stamp sentiments, like I will do with my new "Happy Valentine's Day" stamp, I like the crisp ink of StazOn solvent ink. It is a bit more expensive than other stamp pads at $7.99 but for a crisp impression, you have to splurge. I use my 40% off coupon and snatch it up for $4.79. That's a bit more bearable for me.

Many folks have just gone crazy over all of the Target decor. I like it too. I picked up glitter, wooden clips, 3D heart stickers, felt confetti and a conversations heart 6 color ball point pen. The Bulls Eye (isn't that it's new name? I can't keep up) had lots of great items but the price range varied too much for me. You have $1 things mixed in with $7 items. I've done a few glances but this was all I came up with.

I only picked up 2 rolls of ribbon from Walmart. I really didn't see anything else that I wanted.

Do you know where I spent most of my time? Do you know who has my heart when it comes to planner accessories and crafty items? The Dollar Tree! I had soooo much fun in that place it was ridiculous.

The first things I grabbed where two felt place mats in pink and red. They both have glittery edges and beautiful cut out designs within the heart. I love them (get it? hearts? love?)!

Ribbon -- because you have to. I actually don't use a ton of ribbon for my Valentine's Day crafts but these two fabric ribbon spools were so "purty". I couldn't leave them there. And, I had to get this heart curling ribbon because curling ribbon is what I use the most on gifts and paper clips for planners and miscellaneous designs. And, if you don't need heavy twine, you can use this to hang items.

I picked up these heart shaped jewel stickers and a few Valentine's Day cards. I've seen so many great ideas for Dollar Tree cards on YouTube you might be able to guess what I'm going to use them all for.

Did someone say felt stickers and shapes? Why yes they did! I love a good sparkly heart and while I like the premade stickers, a foam shape without adhesive on the back works too. I have added my own adhesive depending on the craft. Either way, a heart with glitter is not to be missed.

Was that a lot? Probably so, especially when you consider that we only have 30 days until the big day. I'll make a bet with you. I will use 65% - 75% of these items on my Valentine's Day crafts. Come on back after February 14 and see what I used and what's left!

What's in your Valentine's Day arsenal and what are your plans? Not sure what you should do? Head over to my Pinterest Valentine's Day board and see what other folks are making.