Pinterest Projects for Valentines Day

With Valentines day right around the corner I’ve decided to do a couple Pinterest tutorials to make the holiday a little sweeter. Valentines day doesn’t have to be a waste just because you don’t have a special someone to share it with. Bake some sweet treats for your friends or fill your home with pink hearts and your day is bound to be brighter. I’ve combined two of the best things about the day, baking and crafts, into four tutorials I found on Pinterest. They are easy and fun to make, and best of all they don’t take too much time to complete. So if you’re in a crunch for time try some of these out and celebrate the holiday in style.

Cupcake liner wreath

IMG_6590When I found this on Pinterest, it was originally made with various colors of tissue paper. I think that using cupcake liners is much more simple and, to be honest, I couldn’t find tissue paper at Hobby Lobby and didn’t have time to ask for help. But I did find red and red with white hearts cupcake liners that work perfectly with the theme of the season. You don’t need more than 40 liners and it’s nice to have some variety in the colors of them.

The great thing about this wreath is that it’s so simple to make. All you do is flip a liner inside out and stick a pin through it to secure it to the styrofoam. You can adjust how close together each of them are to create more of a ruffled effect. When you’re done, just tie a piece of string around the wreath and you’re good to go! Hang it up on any wall or door to make your home a little more festive.

Materials:
red, white, pink cupcake liners
sewing pins
styrofoam wreath
string

IMG_6606Directions:
1. Take one cupcake liner and flip it inside out so that the white part is now on the outside.
2. Place the liner on the styrofoam wreath and stick a pin through it until it is secure.
3. Take another inside out liner and pin it securely next to the first one.
4. Continue to do this until you have covered the entire wreath leaving space on the back so it can lie flat against the wall when hung up.
5. Tie a piece of string around the wreath and hang up on a tack on a wall or door.

Conversation Heart Decoration Balls

IMG_6629These are my absolute favorite! No one actually likes the taste of conversation hearts. If you’re like me and hate the bland taste but love the tacky sayings, then this is the craft for you. It is easy, yet tedious, simply because you can only glue down one heart at a time. The final product is well worth it, however. I used two three inch and one five inch styrofoam balls so mine were large enough to take up their own vase. However you could also make smaller ones to put in a bouquet of flowers. They’ll keep people entertained while they read all the funny sayings like “hot stuff” and “text me” and make a great centerpiece for any Valentines Day themed table.

Materials:
conversation hearts
styrofoam balls
wooden dowels
hot glue gun
hot glue sticks

Directions:
1. Plug in glue gun and warm up the glue.
2. Take a conversation heart and put a dab of glue onto the back of it then stick it onto the styrofoam ball.
3. Take another heart and do the same, placing it right next to the first heart.
4. Do this with all the hearts until the ball is covered in hearts, leaving enough of the ball uncovered to insert the wooden dowel.
5. Insert the dowel and place in a vase.

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

IMG_6565I don’t remember a single elementary school holiday party that didn’t have chocolate covered pretzel sticks. Yes, they are quite the crowd pleaser, and oh so easy to do! Heat up any type of chocolate chips you want; I used semisweet and white and must say that white wins out every time. Coat the pretzels with chocolate and then pour some Valentines Day themed sprinkles over them and voila! Simple as that. I recommend putting the sticks on a piece of parchment paper rather than directly onto a plate just so they don’t stick onto it and break when you try to pick them up. It takes no more than 10 minutes to make, perfect for a last minute treat the night before a party.

Ingredients:
bag of large pretzel sticksIMG_6560
bag of white chocolate chips
bag of semisweet chocolate chips
various sprinkles

Directions:
1. Pour chocolate chips into a microwave safe bowl filling it halfway then microwave for one minute.
2. Take bowl out of microwave and stir up the chips until smooth and creamy (you may need to stick the bowl back in the microwave for an extra 15 seconds if some of the chips are still solid).
IMG_65633. Using a butter knife or spoon, coat the pretzel stick in chocolate so that ¾ of the stick is covered then place that on a piece of parchment paper or a plate.
4. Pour desired amount of sprinkles over the melted chocolate.
5. Let cool until chocolate is solid, or expedite the process by placing in the refrigerator.

Valentines Chocolate chip cookies

Like many other girls I love baking and the color pink. So when my friend showed me a recipe for pink chocolate chip cookies, I couldn’t resist. From the beginning I knew I had to cut the recipe in half. Seeing “one pound of butter” on the ingredients list made my heart skip a few beats, as I imagine it might if I actually ate one pound of butter. I also decided to make these spur of the moment one day after school which meant that I hadn’t given the butter time to soften. If this happens to you, stick the butter in a Ziploc bag and bash the heck out of it with a meat mallet. Then warm that with the heat of your hands until the butter is nice and soft.

You also may run into another problem with mixing the dough once all the ingredients are added like I did. My mixer was being stubborn and couldn’t get the job done, so I went in with clean hands. Overall my hands worked pretty well despite the light pink, blotchy tint they had as a result But don’t let pink hands discourage you, they go away in a matter of hand washes.

Ingredients:
½ lb. (two sticks) of butter (softened)
¾ cup of sugar
1 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. of vanilla
3 cups of flour
½ tsp. of salt
1 tsp. of baking powder
neon pink food dye
1 bag of semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix butter and sugars together until well combined.
3. Add eggs and vanilla to the mixture and beat well.
4. Add dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) to the mixture, mix until you have a doughy consistency.
5. Add multiple drops hot pink food dye and mix up until the dough is entirely pink (the more you add, the more pink it will be).
6. Pour in desired amount of chocolate chips.
7. Cover cookie tray with parchment paper (if you don’t have parchment paper, grease the tray and put the cookies directly on that.)
8. Roll dough up into one inch diameter balls and press them down onto the tray so that they are more circle shaped than ball shaped.
9. Bake in oven for 8-12 minutes or until desired gooiness.

Once done baking, take out of the oven and let cool for five minutes.

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