Hashtag Be Mine Valentine T-shirt

Who doesn't love a good hashtag? Okay there are some people who could take or leave hashtags. Me, well I think they are hilarious! Love them.

I love when they are ridiculous. You know like  #imtherealcookiemonster #nomnomnomnomnomnom #ididitallforthecookie #lololololololololololololololololololo.... Name the skit...

Hashtags are great.

So when I was brainstorming for Valentine's Day shirt ideas, this Hashtag Be Mine Valentine T-shirt just came to me. #lightbulbwentoff #iamagenius

Kidding...about the genius thing that is.

Now here is the thing, I don't really have a hashtag savvy child yet. Oldest is almost ten. He is years away from getting what a hashtag is. #geezgetwiththetimes #kiddingheis9

He, much to his dismay, is also years away from having a phone. I mean seriously, he is so not getting one for awhile. After all his own mother has had a smart phone under a year and I only have one because my lovely sister went on a mission and left her phone behind. I am going to ignore the panicky feeling I have at the thought of giving it up when she gets back...breathe...just breathe. Fingers crossed I will get one of my own.

He was happy to use mine for the photo shoot. He looks pretty legit.

I will openly admit, this shirt is pretty much for me. Don't get me wrong, he will wear it. Oh, and he will like it. BUT I am pretty sure none of his 9 year-old friends will get it.

He will probably show up at school and it will go something like this--

Friends: "Uh what does that say?" "Why is there a number sign?"

Oldest: "It is called a hashtag. My mom thinks they are funny. My mom is weird."

Friends: "A hashtag?" "That is weird."

Cole: "I know."

Friends: "Your mom is weird."

Cole: "Tell me about it. My brother got a cool shirt and I got stuck with this hashtag one."

He likes to mock me. #igetnorespectaroundhere

He thinks it is rather funny that I am weird. At least I don't embarrass him...yet.

Seriously though guys, I love this shirt. #thisteemakesmehappy

This shirt is easy to make. I always get all my tees at The Mart (aka WalMart). I bought some flocked heat transfer vinyl from my favorite store Expressions Vinyl. I used my Silhouette to cut out the words. Since the design was like insanely simply, the shirt start to finish took under 10 minutes.

Short projects are lovely. #leftmetimetodothelaundry

If you don't have a vinyl cutting machine, you could do this shirt using freezer paper and fabric paint. The project would take a little longer due to having to stencil and then cut out the letters. Then the paint would also have to dry.

Whatever way you make it, it is still pretty easy. Whomever you  make it for, your kid or yourself, it will probably be like the best shirt ever. #bestshirtever #makeeveryoneelsejealous

Hashtags not your thing...

First of all, then I profusely apologize for my hashtag antics in this post.

Second of all, I have lots of other Valentine's Day Shirt ideas. Go check them out and see if they are more to your liking! Also, I have a few more shirts coming up soon, brother's cooler shirt previously mentioned is one of them.

Other shirt ideas--

Love in NYC

Heart Stopper

XOXO

linking here:
Thirty Handmade Days, The Idea Room,
Whipperberry, The 36th Ave

Meant to BEE Friends Valentine {printable}

I love myself some fun Valentines and I am pretty excited that it is time to start creating and making Valentine's.

I actually created this Meant to BEE Valentine for my girlfriends. I love Burt's Bees Beeswax Lip Balm. Like...love it, love it.

When I decided I wanted to give a little gift to some of my girlies, some Burt's Bees seemed perfect. Especially once I paired it with the oh-so-familiar "meant to be" phrase.

I used PicMonkey to make this Meant to BEE Valentine. The file is a PDF and is available for your download valentine fun.

 (download HERE)

All you need to make this Meant to BEE Friends Valentine is the printable, some Burt's Bees Lip Balm, ribbon, and hot glue.

After I printed and cut out the Meant to BEE tags, I tied little ribbons around the lip balm tubes.

Then I used a small amount of hot glue to adhere the lip balm tube to the tag.

Done and done! So easy. All I have to do now is give them to my girlfriends.

Happy Valentine's Day planning and prepping. Love myself some Love Day.

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52 Reasons I Love You Printable (A Pinteresting Wednesday)

We have been married 12 plus years. That is a lot of married happiness right there. You know how in the first bit of marriage it is all ponies, glitter, rainbows, and lot and lots of....

...giggles...

More years follow. Some of the newness wears off. Marriage changes a bit, but change is good.

Marriage is work, but anything worth anything takes work.

Sometimes work is fun.

You know what is fun? Taking a little extra time to do something special for the person you love mostest. Or finding ways to let them know you appreciate them.

I have been trying a little extra hard to show The Hubs how much I love and appreciate him.

Which made this A Pinteresting Wedenesday project a no brainer. I had this Love Card Deck project pinned from DIY IYD to my Romantic Pin Board.

I made my own version along with a printable. Fifty-two Reasons I Love You.

I started with a red deck of cards. I prettied up the card box a bit with some stripped paper.

I made a printable using PicMonkey. The heart overlays are perfect for any love or Valentine's Day project.

Here is the printable for you. You will need to download it to your computer and then open it in a Word program. Make sure you shrink it down to about 3 1/2 by 2 1/2, which is roughly the size of a card box.

On each of the 52 cards of the deck, write reasons you love your spouse.

Just keep writing until you have a little message on each card.

Glue the printable onto the front of the card box.

All that is left is to put the deck of cards in the box.

Then you just deliver it to the lucky person.

I may or may not have left The Hubs this token of my affection on his pillow. Forget the mint. Fifty-two declarations of love and affection is way better.

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Homemade Heart-Shaped Samoa Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day!

We have already had some celebrations all up in here.

Brownies. Flowers (Did you get that they are named Hot Princess? I think he did that on purpose!). Care packages from Nana and Grandpa. An early valentine from Oldest to me. Yes, it actually says I like when you say yes. I can see he was trying to butter me up, I wonder what he wants. Hahaha. His birthday is in a couple of days. I am sure I will find out soon.

As long as it is Homemade Heart-shaped Samoa Cookies, I can deliver.

Samoas are by far my very favorite cookie. Yup, not just my favorite Girl Scout cookie flavor, my favorite cookie. Ever. Period. End of Story.

End of really yummy story.

Years ago I came across a recipe for homemade Samoas. What?!?

You mean I can have them whenever I want them? Not just when those adorable little elves are barricaded in front of the grocery store with their card table stacked high with cookies.

 Yeah, that sounds delightful.

Weird thing is...

I sort of filed the recipe away and forgot about it. Shocking I know.

I recently pulled it out. I will now never, ever put it away again.

I made them for the teachers at the boys' school. They were quite the hit. A diet was even supposedly put on hold just to have some.

The cookies are a tiny bit of work, but don't let that scare you off. They are totally and completely worth it. 

Have a warm and fuzzy Valentine's Day with those who love you the mostest!

Homemade Samoa Cookies
Baking Bites

Printable Recipe

Cookies:
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 Tablespoons milk

Topping:
3 cups sweetened coconut
12 oz caramels
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons milk
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Mix in flour, baking powder, and salt on low speed. Then mix in the vanilla and milk. Start with 2 Tablespoons milk. The dough should just come together and not be too sticky. You may need to add the other Tablespoon.

Slightly flour a work surface. Roll the dough out to about 1/4" thickness. Use a small circle (or heart) cookie cutter, about 1 1/2" in size. Place on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes until bottoms are slightly golden. Cool slightly on pan and then transfer to a wire rack.

To make the topping, first lay the coconut out on a cooking sheet and toast in a 300 degree oven for about 10 minutes, tossing every 2 minutes. Set aside to col.

Then combine the caramels (unwrapped), milk and salt in a microwave-safe bowl. Cook for 3-4 minutes, stopping every 30-60 seconds to stir. When the caramel is smooth, stir in the toasted coconut.

Using a small butter knife or offset spatula, spread 1-2 teaspoons amount of caramel mixture onto the top of each cooled cookie. Set aside.

Melt the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl in 30 second intervals, stirring each time, until smooth. Dip the base of each cookie into the chocolate and then set on a piece of parchment paper to cool. Place the leftover chocolate in a small baggie, hold closed and cut off the tip to make a piping bag. Drizzle chocolate over the tops of each cookie.

Let set up. You can speed up this process by putting them in the freezer.

Store in an air-tight container in the fridge or freezer...that is if you have any left!

Hugs and Kisses Valentine Day T-Shirt

Only two more day until Valentine's Day.

After a lot of patience, my Little finally has his own Valentine shirt. He saw me make Oldest's Love In NYC shirt and Middle's Heartstopper shirt.

Every day he asked me, "Is my shirt done?" "Are you making my shirt now?"

Today he got his shirt. Yippee! Doesn't he look excited?

 I knew I wanted something simple. I had more flocked t-shirt vinyl from Expressions Vinyl. I loved working with it so much on the Heartstopper tee, I started brainstorming how I could use it again.

I came up with this Hugs and Kisses design.

I very simply just typed "XO" five times in one row. I made five rows. I then made sure the image was the width and height I wanted. Mine measured 9" tall and about 7 1/2" wide.

Since this is for a t-shirt vinyl, before you can cut the image out you need to flip the image horizontally.

Then the image gets cut out of the vinyl with the Silhouette. I cut away one set of "XOXO" from the bottom corner.

So when I peeled away the excess this is what the main image looks like.

Then I took the cut away piece and peeled out the letters, creating a stencil.

After ironing the main image on according to the instructions, I put the "stencil" part down and ironed it very, very briefly. Basically iron it only long enough to get it stay in place but not to be permanent.

Just using it for a stencil.

I wanted a little Valentine's red pop.

So I painted the stencil "XOXO" red. Tap, tap, tap-a-roo. Tap that paint in place.

Now here is a "get real" moment.

After the paint was on, I went to pull up the stencil and I had a little mishap. I was just a tad impatient and didn't wait for the paint to dry. Some of the red paint got on the white shirt.

FOR THE LOVE!

Oooh I was so mad. So, so mad.

Thank heavens for teeny tiny brushes, a somewhat steady hand, and white fabric paint.

It is not perfect, but it hides my little faux paux.

With my oops practically invisible, Little's Hugs and Kisses shirt is all ready for Thursday.

 So super duper cute.

The t-shirt is kind of cute too!

Man I could just hug and kiss that Little guy all day.

A perfect tee for my huggable kissable Little Man. I am not sure I can convince him to wait until Thursday to wear it.

Thanks for reading.

Love in NYC Valentine T-shirt: How-to

Oh I am just so excited for this t-shirt.

I have a really hard time finding Valentine's Day shirts that aren't too hearts and flowers for my Little Men or that aren't too "I Am a Ladies Man"...which no Little Man needs to claim. Momma's Little Man, sure, Ladies Man, uh no.

It is especially hard finding Valentine's shirts for my almost-nine-going-on-fifteen-year-old Little Man.

I was trying really hard to come up with a "cool" more subtle love-day shirt.

I might love An Affair to Remember. I also love, love, love Sleepless in Seattle. I didn't think that he would appreciate me plastering Cary Grant on his shirt, however I immediately thought about about the Empire State Building.

Once that light bulb went off, it seemed only obvious what I was going to do for Oldest's t-shirt.

A NYC skyline with the Empire State Building with windows "lit up" in the shape of a heart.

Pretty stinkin' cool Valentine threads if you ask me...or him.

 This shirt was so easy to make.

All you need is a white t-shirt, iron on printable transfer for stretchable material (I used Avery).

Then you need a NYC image. I did a google image search to find a NYC skyline with the Empire State building in it. When you find an image you like you can save it to your computer.

Then edit it in an online photo program, like PicMonkey. I enlarged the photo and made the image a little darker.

Then I opened it in a Word program. When working with fabric transfers you want the image flipped to get the mirror image. If you go under the page layout and click on the rotate option, you can flip your image horizontal.

Then your image will be reversed.

Print it off.

Trim it down to size.

Follow the instructions...basically iron it on.

Since the image is larger it takes about 3 minutes. Then let it cool for another couple of minutes before you peel off the backing.

While you are waiting for the shirt to cool, go ahead and chisel yourself a little window stamp out of a pencil eraser.

Peel off the backing. Grab some red fabric paint.

Carefully stamp out windows in the shape of a heart.

Here is a close up look to see the number of rectangles and how I placed the "windows".

Let it dry, or you can be like me, impatient, you can whip out your hair dryer and speed up the drying process.

Oh I just love it.

Just what I wanted for Oldest. A cool, subtle shirt he can wear on Valentine's Day...

...or any other day he wants to get his cool on.

Or getting your silly on.

I hope you find this helpful and just in time for Valentine's day.

Happy Tuesday! Thanks for stopping by.

Linking Here:

Todays Creative Blog, Not Just a Housewife,

Sugar Bee Crafts,

Lil'Luna,

The 36th Avenue, Tatertots and Jello,

Be Different Act Normal,

Your Homebased Mom