Getting my Craft On: Feeling the Love

Y’all, lets be honest.  I’m am not a crafty person.  Crafts are a slippery slope for me.  I tend to channel a little bit of ADD when it comes to crafts… my brain just can’t handle the options, the creativity and the possibilities.  I don’t know when to say when and end up with 1,000 half-done projects and a big, fat mess.  I think Mike literally cringes when I decide I feel like “making something”.

Do you want to know just how crafty I am not??  I just discovered Mod Podge this past Christmas…for real.  I had no idea what it was and how you used it 2 short months ago.  My last foray into crafting occurred around Christmas… and ended with newly-discovered Mod Podge on the kitchen table, bits of paper everywhere and a couple of ornaments that kind of looked like my 5 year old made them.  That, my friends, is why I stick to furniture.

But here I am…. in the midst of writing a post about crafting… for Valentine’s Day.  Really??  Check outside; it’s quite possible that pigs are flying.  But the boys are gone for the weekend visiting their grands and I am home in the middle of a winter storm (at least a winter storm by southern standards).

“>

We really don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day around here.  We give the boys extra hugs and throw a few Hershey’s Kisses in their lunchboxes.  We exchange “I love you” a few extra times on that day.  But I don’t certainly don’t decorate for Valentine’s Day… until now.

There were 2 little crafts I wanted to do this year.  One is fairly simple and involves one of my favorite southern accessories… the mason jar.  LOVE some mason jars!  The are the perfect food storage container, impromptu vase, drinking vessel and crafting staple.  As much as I hesitate to decorate for Valentine’s Day, there is one craft I knew I wanted to do this year.  I’m sure it’s been done before, but this is my take on it.

Months and months ago, I read an article about the importance of telling your kids not only that you love them, but what you love ABOUT them.  Instead of saying “I love you”, try saying “I love watching you play” or “I love the way you…” instead.  That concept stuck with me and it’s one that I’ve thought about time and again.  Around the same time, James’ teacher set up a tiny little buckets for each child in class.  The buckets get filled with positive notes from other students in class.  The goal is to make sure that no classmates bucket goes empty.  The notes that James brings home from his bucket are precious and hysterical.  Seeing notes in his bucket makes him so happy.

Putting two and two together, I’ve decided that during the month of February, I will make both of my boys “buckets” using mason jars.  My goal is to fill them each day with a little note telling my two boys what I love about them… and maybe fill them with a little chocolate kiss or candy heart here and there.

Creating the mason jar buckets was easy.  I found 2 old mason jars that were previously used to hold floating candles.  They were empty and relatively clean.  I cut 2 strips of a gingham patterned piece of scrapbook paper and hunted through my grandmother’s old teaching supplies looking for her Valentine’s materials.  I found 2 little cupid silhouettes cut from poster board long, long ago.  The strip of scrapbook paper and cupids were mod-podged to each mason jar.  After several coats and a little drying time, I added some vinyl chalkboard labels from my friend Leen the Graphics Queen and added their names using a chalk marker.  I left the outer part of the mason jar lid on and secured twine through it.  That gives me an option to hang the jars if I want to.

Right now, the mason jars are sitting in their rooms, waiting on their return with a little welcome-home treat inside.  I’m excited to tell my boys what I love about them throughout the month of February… and excited that I feel like I’ve finally found a meaningful way to celebrate what we used to consider a Hallmark holiday in our home.