will you be my valentine?

The eucalyptus and holly berry wreath from the holiday season has been packed away and the front door of the house (which is never ever used, by the way - it's literally just for looks) now faces the street with a warm Valentine's theme.  This wreath is made of paper (the natural, textured kind) and although it's become a bit sunbleached over the years, I still love the way it looks against the door - a match made in heaven!  When the ladybugs were little, I used to be so crafty each Valentine's season, you saw in the previous post how we made homemade valentines each year for school - we must have done those pencil bouquets at least 3 years in a row, those were a favorite.  Then somewhere along the way, the passion for Valentine's got dialed back a bit - the ladybugs got older and busier and life just got in the way.  But this year was different - I got pretty fired up after seeing so many clever ideas out there in blogland!  Gabe's Love Tree was such an inspiration (as is everything Gabe posts!) that I just had to do the same thing chez Bug.  In that same post, Gabe referenced Kim's Love Tins from last year ... more inspiration!  Yup, this year, the Valentine's love came back strong ... in the form of what we're calling "love bowls" here at the Bug residence.

While we were snowed in with last week's huge 2-day snowstorm, we made a template of smallish hearts on paper (post-it note size, about 8 per sheet) and cut out zillions of hearts.  Then we grabbed up every red and pink marker in the house.  For each person in the family, we took a handful of hearts and wrote different things that we loved about that person.  Could be something general (love her snuggles, love his scratchy whiskers) or something very specific (love that you helped your sister carry her books this morning).  And then we decorated four small bowls (about the size of a tennis ball, 77¢ each at AC Moore!) as a place to put our declarations of love.  I had originally left these bowls plain like a fishbowl, but when I saw how cute Cindy's Love Jars came out, I couldn't resist a little accessorizing of our own!  Watch the evolution of our love bowls:

It just doesn't get any cuter!  Gabe, Kim, and Cindy, thank you so much for the inspiration!  Our four love bowls are being kept on the kitchen counter with a pile of blank hearts and a fleet of pink and red markers nearby.  The idea is that we'll keep filling one another's jars indefinitely - I just did one today after school when I learned that big ladybug found a song she liked and little ladybug asked her piano teacher to help her learn the song so she could play it for her sister.  Basically, every time I get the warm-n-fuzzies from something someone does or says, any unexpected act of kindness etc,  I fill out a heart and stuff that person's love bowl!  I'm working on nudging the ladybugs toward that same reflex - a work in progress, but we're getting there!

As a final copycat effort in the name of Valentine's Day, I filled a bowl of candy hearts and took a photo that was inspired by Nicolle's beautiful photo that she took as a blog header idea for the month of February ...

What d'ya think?!  Not too bad thanks to my trusty 'nifty-fifty' lens - thanks for the idea, Nicolle!  Soooo much inspiration out there in blogland, it's been an incredible resource to have such a creative and amazing group of friends right out there at my fingertips - thank you guys - just look at the infusion of new life in our Valentine's to see how far the blog-effect reaches ... wishing you all a happy and love-filled Valentine's weekend ahead!!