This is what I made for my Valentine!

Happy Valentine's Day!

With so much commercialism around this day and many expensive, lavish ideas on how to declare your love I wanted to do something more personal. Not a high value item but a gift of love!

As you will see, not an original idea, nor very different from mainstream Valentines gift but the one thing money cannot buy is time so that is what went into my gift. The intention being to show that OH is worth taking time over rather than just getting a token box of chocolates.

So this is how it all went............................
I bought a plain cardboard heart shaped box


and proceeded to decorate it.
In keeping with the Valentine Theme I used the traditional colours but went for Anita's Acrylic Spice Red and Sand instead of bright red and white.

I first painted the inside with Sand acrylic and once dry painted over it with watered down glue to seal the paint (less stinky than varnish)

and then cut out a heart from handmade paper with silver threads in it (not handmade by me)

I went around the inside edges with silver and then wiped it off to leave a thick, shiny, translucent outline


















I traced round the edge of the paper heart with 3D silver paint and then distressed it to give a hammered 'metal' finish,

added 3 mirror silver heart cut outs and a silver stamp saying 'may all your dreams come true',

stamped this lightly so it was just visible on the handmade paper

then used the silver stamp to finish off the edge of the box in silver (easier than trying to paint a straight edge)

Next the outside was painted Spice Red and once dry painted over with watered down glue.

I punched hearts from the same silver threaded paper on the inside and glued those around the

edge in 2's.
















I did some smaller mirror heart shapes on top of the paper hearts and painted cream dots on between the hearts.

On the lid I cut out another large heart from handmade paper to which I added a 'Love' transfer and a silver, metal teddy with a heart.
Around the edge I stuck silver cord and followed the shaped of the cut out heart with silver glitter glue. After much drying time I added cream dots and silver cutout stickers around the edge with 2 red diamond shape flat back rhinestones.
I bought some plain chocolate hearts in red foil, made some yummy whisky truffles and covered some with white chocolate, some milk chocolate and some with vanilla sugar.
It was tricky to make these close to the day and finding a place to hide them that was cold enough so they wouldn't melt but not be seen. If you are making truffles the fridge is an ideal place to keep them but not if they are going to be a surprise!

Late on Saturday night I folded some bright pink tissue paper for the base of the box and arranged the truffles and then placed box and card in a prominent place (hoping this was also cold enough not to leave a messy puddle of chocolate as we have such a lovely warm house.)
I also bought a small wooden heart to which I added a message.

Hope you liked this project.