The Key to My Heart Vignette

On this Valentine's Eve, here's a romantic vignette

based on the quote by Oliver Wendall Holmes:

"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness".

Keys have had an attraction for me for the past several months;

I'm not sure why. I gathered them together for this 

Valentine vignette along with some other heart-themed items.

The framed chicken wire that served as a card holder at 

Christmas now holds paper wreaths, book page 

heart garlands, Valentine ephemera and keys. 

The items sitting on the buffet also go along with the

key/Valentine/vintage theme. 

If you like a little "the making of" photos, here's what some

 of the items looked like before being added to the vignette:

The key collection without the most special one!

Sherry from No Minimalist Here blog sent me an antique

key and I put it in such a safe place I can't find it  :(   .

The biggest keys came from T.J. Maxx.  The Jim Holtz keys came from Jo Ann's craft section.

They are wonderfully heavy and feel like real keys.  They also have inspirational words on them.

The keys on the mirror I bought at a craft sale popped off when I started to paint the mirror

so I just used the keys and left the mirror for another time. 

The key wall hanging had another sentiment on the bottom

but I covered it up with words that went more with the theme.

It came from the clearance section at Hobby Lobby for $8.

The golden keys got painted a more rusty color to go with the

metal angel (on sale at Hobby Lobby for $12.50)...isn't she pretty?

The little red heart came off of an older Valentine card...

got painted and a vintage-looking cutout was glued on.

No heart-shaped wreath forms were anywhere to be found

so I made some out of "Great Stuff" insulation foam in a can.

To give an "already aged" look to the coffee filter wreath,

brown filters were used. To, hopefully, tie this wreaths' look

into the book page wreaths on the mantle, each filter was 

embellished with a script-y stamp from the craft store.

There are lots of good tutorials on the internet about how
to make a coffee filter wreath. Use your stamped natural
color filters and continue following those directions.
Here's a very good tutorial to try from Lil' Luna blog.

The other heart-shaped wreath is also a book page wreath

but it looked so very "meh" with only the torn pages.

It got romantic with the addition of cut up tea-stained doilies

and some of the left over vintage-looking cutouts.

To see other wreaths I made with book pages for Valentines' click on  Vintage Valentine Mantle.

The paper heart garland was made from aged book pages

left over from the wreaths.  I used a paper punch from the

craft store to make the hearts and glued them onto a string.

Let's see what else...the antique-looking vase came from 

Hobby Lobby this year, the heart-shaped wire basket was $2

at a flea market, the tin and the cross-stitch on the 

wooden block came from Michael's this year

(I added the vintage cutouts on top to tie them in),

  the little vases I had, and the roses came from Tom Kat.

Speaking of Tom Kat, for a REAL behind the scenes look at

this Valentine vignette, here's a pic of the photo session:

All day we had rain and it was dark and gloomy so no 

good natural light on this interior wall for photos. Tom Kat

 helped with lighting so I could get pictures but there were NO

cute, sweet "Hey Girl" sentiments uttered by him that night.

Vintage Valentine Lollies

The coffee table in the great room was in need of a Valentine

decoration to go along with the mantle.  I have a few cloches

but did not have anything "cloche-worthy" to put in them.

A photo that I had recently seen gave me an idea for some-
 thing I could make to put in the cloches for very little cost.

Photo by Hayley Sheldon

These are actually ribbon medallions but they are in the
 shape of cute "lollies" I had seen used at parties, etc. 

For one of the book page wreaths I made for the
Valentine mantle, I tried a "lolly" to fill out the center.

Click here to see the tutorial that I used to learn how
to make the lolly.  The tutorial is actually for a 
"flower" ...just don't trim the edges into a curve. 

To construct the lollies, I used left over items from 

decorating the mantle for Valentine's Day:  

aged book pages and vintage-looking cutouts that 

were in the scrapbook section at the craft store.

For the lollies that were going in the taller cloches, 

ribbon was added also. 

The smaller cloches' lollies didn't need any ribbon.

I'm not that good of a photographer...I get lots of glare off

of the cloches when I am taking photos of them.  Mind if I 

"un-cloche" the lollies so you can see them better?

OK gang...now put your cloches back on! 

Sneak Peek Behind the Scenes Look:
A few folks have asked how the lollies are standing up
in the cloches.  Here is a photo from behind with the 
cloches off:

For three of the cloches, I was able to use a clear vase to hold
the lollies up.  The two taller ones also had a wooden skewer
taped to them to elevate the lollies more.  The vases did not
work on the other two lollies...the vase pushed the lollie too
close to the edge of the cover.  The lollies were really 
lightweight so a piece of foam was enough to hold them up. 

Vintage Valentine Mantle

The combination of wanting to make some aged book page

wreaths that I had seen on Pinterest and coming across some

Victorian-looking cutouts at the craft store drew me into 

having a Vintage Valentine mantle this year. 

Well, and, to tell the truth, the books and wreath hanging hooks 

were still on the mantle from Christmas decorations so the 

Valentine decor theme was part inspiration and part laziness. 

All of the aged book pages on these wreaths came from one 

book.  The first wreath that I made from the book pages 

that were artificially aged was the Pointy Cone Wreath.

Another wreath that I had seen (but could not find a tutorial
 for) was one that looked like little scrolls...I just winged it. 

Toothpicks were added to the backs of the cutouts and then

 they were stuck in the foam wreath form. That way the wreath's 

decorations can be easily changed out for different seasons. 

The aged book page leaf wreath was the easiest one to do. 

Here's the tutorial I found on Pinterest if you would like to 

make one too.  This wreath is not the style I originally wanted

on this vintage mantle but I had to make a change in plans. 

Because I wanted to make this one interchangeable too, 

I added the "lolly" (here's a tutorial on how to make one)

with another vintage cutout glued onto it and hung by a string. 

The books on the mantle are ones that will NOT be torn up

to make wreaths.  I either love their uneven page edges,

spines or content too much to do that to them.

I ordered a "surprise box" from an internet company. 

I think the way it worked was you sent $20 and they sent you 

something worth at least that from their company's stock. 

When this pretty metal object arrived, I had no idea what it

was to be used for. One suggestion that was made was an

"ephemera" holder.  I had no idea what "ephemera" was either.

After researching that word, I think these pretty cutouts are

 a form of ephemera and they do work well on the "thing".  

To see the coffee table decor in the same room as 
the mantle click on "Vintage Valentine Lollies"
and/or if you would like to see more book page wreaths
in this room , click "Key To My Heart Vignette".