Valentines Day Shadowbox Craft

Sometimes when we have guests I like to organize a craft for everyone to do to pass the time. When my family visited for Valentine's day last year, we made heart shadowboxes in honor of valentine's day!

Here is my Mom and then pregnant sister-in-law in my craft room working on their shadowboxes. 

I purchased a 3-pack of shadowboxes at Michael's and set out heart punches and a variety of paper so everyone could choose their colors.

Folding the hearts in half makes them 3-D when in the shadowbox.

Here are the finished products on display.  It was a fun 'girl's day in'!

DIY Valentine's Day Chocolate Buffet

Last year my family visited for Valentine's Day so we set-up a Chocolate buffet! It was so easy to do, I just bought some fun chocolates (mostly from Trader Joe's) and set them out in martini glasses. 

 A chocolate buffet would also be fun for a movie viewing of 'Chocolat' or 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'. So many excuses to eat more chocolate!

Valentine's Day Dinner

My family is coming to visit on Valentine's Day, so I thought it would be fun to stay-in and make a Valentine's Day Themed Dinner!  

Here's what I have panned for the menu:

1. Valentine's Day Caprese Salad
2. Heart Salads with Homemade Croutons
3. Valentine Surf & Turf
4. Roasted Heart Potatoes
5. Heart Shaped Carrots
6. Jell-O Strawberry Parfait

Moose Mousse Valentine's Dessert

 Mousse was something I had never made but always wanted to try.  When I saw this mousse recipe made on Twin Cities Live, I knew I would be making it for Valentine's Day.  Since my nephew's nickname for my husband is 'Moose', I decided to make 'Moose Mousse' for our Valentine's dessert!

To make the chocolate antlers, find a drawing of moose antlers on google images.  Copy/paste it into powerpoint and adjust it to the size that will work with your serving dish.  Since I was making two moose, I copied 4 antlers and printed.


Cover the printed paper with wax paper to trace the antlers in melted chocolate.

I decided to go with pink antlers for contrast and for Valentine's Day, but any color will work.  To get the pink, melt a chunk of white almond bark with two red candy melt discs.


After melting the chocolate in a plastic bag, snip the corner of the bag with a scissors and it's ready to pipe onto the wax paper.  Outline the antler first, then go back and fill in with more chocolate.


Using a large muffin scoop, scoop mousse into a martini glass.  The humps created by the scoop give the head and nose their shape. The mousse didn't set-up like I wanted it to, so I had to whip mine in the mixer before scooping.


To create the moose face, add the hardened chocolate antlers, raspberries stuffed with white chocolate chips for eyes, a strawberry slice tongue, and the typical mint leaf garnish with the tongue so it looks like he's eating it!

Blender Chocolate Mousse 

Courtesy of The Cooking Mom

Ingredients:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon coffee liqueur or vanilla extract
1 cup heavy cream
Fresh whipped cream (optional)
1/2 cup fresh berries (optional)

Directions:
Place chocolate chips, egg and coffee liqueur or vanilla in blender and chop. Heat cream until very hot and small bubbles appear at edge. Carefully pour hot cream into the blender. Blend until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Pour into dessert dishes or pretty wine or martini glasses. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until it firms up a bit. Serve with fresh berries and/or whipped cream on top. Makes enough for 2 to 3 servings depending on the size of the dish.

'Girls' Night In' Valentine's Day Gift

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here is a little Valentine's gift I put together this year with the theme is 'Girls Night In'. Here's what I included:

-Mini heart-shaped box of valentine chocolates

-Single Serving glass of red wine

-My favorite oxblood nail polish, Revlon's 'Vixen'

-Valentine's card I made using my 'Simple Holiday Cards' Cricut cartridge

All wrapped up in a cute valentines' bag I found at Target that matches everything inside!

Look here to view my 'Just Add Chocolates' Valentine's Day gift from last year.

Heart Crab Cakes

These crab cakes are the perfect Valentine's Day appetizer to be served with heart salads with homemade croutons!

Heart Crab Cakes

1-6oz. can crab meat (I use Trader Joe's)

1 egg, beaten

1/4 c. panko breadcrumbs

1/4 c. seasoned breadcrumbs

2 T. lemon Juice

1 tsp. Old Bay seasoning

1 T fresh chopped parsley

Salt & Pepper to taste

butter and oil for frying

Mix together all ingredients.  They should be a damp and moist but hold together when pressed together. If mixture it too dry, add a little milk until the consistency is correct. 

Press the mixture into a heart shaped cookie cutter to form a heart shaped patty.  Fry in a frying pan in a mixture of about 1T butter and 1T olive oil for each side.

After each side is browned, remove from heat and place on a plate (I garnish with arugula and tomatoes).  Serve with crab cake sauce on each crab cake or on the side.

Crab Cake Sauce

1/4 c. Mayo

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. Old Bay seasoning

Mix together until all ingredients are incorporated.

Heart Salads with Homemade Heart Croutons

These heart salads are a great addition to any Valentine's or anniversary dinner, and easy to create by making a few easy changes to your typical salad!

Using a small heart cookie cutter, cut cheese slices and red peppers into heart shapes. Add to your favorite salad, along with homemade heart  croutons.

Homemade Heart Croutons:

Bread

Herbs de Province

Olive Oil

Using whatever bread you have on hand, cut out heart shapes using a small heart cookie cutter.  Place on cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil and herbs de province.  Bake @ 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and crunchy.

Felt Heart Wreath

Although this heart wreath is made out of felt, it almost looks like roses from far away. It was easy and inexpensive to make, although it took some time!

I started with a 12" foam heart from JoAnn's.  I traced the bottom of a soup can to create a circle template, them cut about 200 circles out of red felt.  I folded the fabric to cut more than one a time, but it still took a while!

I then folded the circles in half, then half again, and used a pin to hold the fold and apply the felt circles to the front side of the foam heart.

I strongly suggest investing in one of these thimbles if you are going to be pushing in a lot of pins to make a wreath--totally worth it!

I pinned a pink ribbon to the back so the wreath could be hung. Here it is on my door!

'Just Add Strawberries' Valentine's Day Gift

 I put together these 'Just Add Strawberries' gifts for Valentine's day.  The gift consisted of:

*Sweet Pink Wine

*Dipping Chocolate

*Dipping Skewers tied with Red Ribbon

*Heart Plates and Napkins

I gave these out early, so all they need to do is pick-up some fresh strawberries when they want to enjoy!

The gift was inspired by this bottle of wine called 'SWEET BLISS Sweet Pink Wine'.  I haven't tried it myself yet--just bought it because my Mom's maiden name is Bliss so I thought it was neat!

DIY Photo Booth

For our Valentine's Day Party we created a photo booth in my craft room so guests could take their photos throughout the night!

We took photos using the Photo Booth program on my Mac, which is this Icon:

It's so easy, all you do is click on the camera and it counts down, 3..2...1... and starts taking pictures!

It takes 4 pictures and they end up in one photo like this:

To create the background, I used rolls of pink paper which we just taped to the wall. I added some Valentine's decorations to give it a 'Prom backdrop' feel:

We set out props for people to use in their pictures, including pink boas, 'LOVE' letters to hold, angel/cupid wings, valentines antennas, and a fun hat.

Here we are! It was a lot of fun and basically free to make, we just had to pay to have them made into 4x6 prints at Target!

Cupid's Cocktail Valentine's Day Party

I just LOVE Valentine's Day, and this year was the best Valentine's Day EVER!

The theme of the party was 'Cupid's Cocktail' so everyone wore cocktail party attire. 

Here are some pics from before the party started:

Chris let me go all out which was awesome!  We rented a helium tank and blew-up 150 red and pink balloons.  I had wanted to do this for  party ever since I saw it on Sex and the City the movie!

We created a photo booth in my craft room, another thing I've always wanted to do for a party.  After the party I had the pictures printed and sent to everyone in homemade valentines.

Instead of a table cloth, I put red mylar gift basket stuffing all over the table to glam it up.

The dessert bar, complete with chocolate dipped strawberries,

 four kinds of homemade truffles, and mini cheesecakes.

We served cosmos to fit in with the cocktail party theme, and they're red so it was perfect!

Valentine's Day Decor

Here are some of the decorations I have up for Valentines Day! They'e all very inexpensive or free, most are just paper!  Swapping out my regular frames with seasonal printables saves a lot of money on decorations, and storage space!

 Free printables found here

 Cans of fake roses over the kitchen sink

 I made this by cutting paper hearts, folding down the center, and gluing the hearts into the shadow box along the fold.

 Free printable found here

 Just glitter paper hearts on a scrapbook paper background

 Tissue paper puffs

Entryway

Felt heart garland is from Pier1

 Free printables above and below are from this site

'LOVE' Letters cut out of glitter paper