I love Valentine’s Day. I have since I was a little girl. I love tiny red hearts and curled pink ribbon and store windows decorated festively. I love Valentines…real Valentines…the little cards tucked inside tiny envelopes with your name printed on the front that were passed out on a windy school day in February. I can still feel that excitement of opening each one, wondering who it was from.

I remember my Valentine’s Days growing up with fondness. In fourth grade, my mom let my sister and I throw a Valentine’s Day party. It was the first time we had ever had a party without it being our birthday (and probably started my lifelong love of entertaining). She let us decorate with red and pink streamers, and make cupcakes with heart sprinkles. All the girls in the neighborhood came.

Another year, probably when I was about fourteen or fifteen, I found a small gift from my mom waiting for me on Valentine morning. I was the only one up when I found it (in high school, I had to leave for school before the rest of the family was even awake) and remember being quite surprised. First, as much I had always loved the holiday, I think this one had sneaked up on me. Secondly, I was absolutely surly and horrid at this age; I probably didn’t deserve a card, let alone a gift. But inside was a dainty silver charm bracelet, and I loved it!

Valentine’s Day is the girliest of holidays, and I love being girly.

February 2015

I decided to take a more sophisticated spin on the Valentine Decor in the home this year (although I still plan for my classroom and probably the boys’ playroom to showcase my affinity for traditional red and pink hearts). I decided to go with lots of white and also some muted pastels.

One of the first ideas that popped in my head this holiday season was making frosted glass candles for the mantle.

I started by purchasing several different size glass candle holders from Michaels (and silently cursed myself for not keeping all of those random glass vases I have received over the years being a teacher).

I also purchased the cheapest contact paper I could find from Walmart.

Now, I cheated a little on this next part and took the contact paper to school to use with a few of our heart die-cuts. If you are not a teacher, or if you do not have a teacher friend you can bribe with Reese’s cups, you can still hand-draw hearts on the contact paper and cut them out. This is actually what I was originally going to do because I wanted free-form hearts, but then I got a little lazy when I thought about the cutting part (especially cutting small hearts).

I set my glasses out and began to apply the contact paper hearts in random patterns.

Next I took them outside for some frosted spray painting (there are several brands out there–this one was from Lowes).

I used painters tape to tape off the top. This is really important because you won’t get that clear glass contrast if you don’t do this step. I also used painters tape to tape off any other area I wanted clear glass to show through, like the lip on some glass containers, and the base for others.

I dragged out my handy spray paint cardboard (it’s been used multiple times as you can see) and got busy spraying.