My Valentine Day Decorating

Happy Valentine's weekend, Lovelies!  

Hope you have some special plans to do fun things with your loved ones.  

It's a nice to celebrate LOVE.  

I like to commemorate each holiday decorating the house with my collection of vintage treasures and thrifty finds.  Over the years, we've amassed quite a collection of charming holiday decor.  Mr. Wonderful & I enjoyed spending some of our free time together roaming dusty flea markets & antique shops for cute bargains we could give each other as gifts.

After the arduous task of packing up most of the Christmas decorations the house looks dusty and bare.  I leave out the things that are more snow / winter related like my snowflake lights and keep a few darling snowmen dotted throughout the house.

 Since it gets dark so early in the winter, it's nice to have soft glow to light the way.  I use those clever mechanical timers so at 5pm when the shadows pop out and the sun starts it's decent my snowman blowmold and snowflake lights illuminate the dusky corners.

They are four fireplace mantles downstairs and I've got them all decked out with interesting doodads.  The dining room mantle has built in cupboards so I tuck away dishes and teacups in there.

I picked up that sparkly snowball garland at Target this Christmas and just added a strand of pastel lights, then clipped on some small vintage valentines my sweetheart gave to me.  

I love the graphics of the older valentines and the play on words.  

Aren't they darling?

A sparkly sequined gold arrow, new from Target, 

makes a snazzy display on the den mantle.  

Opposite the mantle in the dining room, sits the computer desk and shelf.  I've grown accustomed to using that soda pop crate to give height to the display with the tiny cubbies to tuck away little plastic candy containers and whatnots.  

Jadite mugs are a perfect fit.  So are those little birthday candle packages in red for the holiday. 

I do like the way a collection looks all gathered up together in one place but I must prefer to use a few pieces scattered here & there through the house.

Finally, in the kitchen, is this giant Hoosier cabinet.  It sits in a dark corner so I'm obligated to brighten it up with some holiday cheer.  This winter I've used it as my hot cocoa station and all the red goes well with the valentine theme.  I just swapped out the santas for heart shaped candy boxes, added a few vintage valentines and festooned with another sweet garland, new from Target.

Love is in the Air!

One of my favorite spots to decorate for the holidays is this darling white cupboard in the kitchen that my Mr. Wonderful thrifted for me and refinished.  

Over the years I've enjoyed displaying & rearranging my various collections on it.  Don't the tiny little vintage plastic snowmen look cute tucked in with the colorful Fiestaware dishes?

 All my oldest and dearest vintage valentines are displayed here.

This one might be my most cherished.  

It is called a mechanical valentine because a little paper lever moves the 

delicate fairy wings, mask & eyes.  

It's colors and graphics are so pretty.  

Isn't it precious?

Around the corner in the kitchen is this pink shelf that I've had since I was a little girl.  I use it to store some of my growing collection of Lovely books.  The top shelf holds any books I find by or about Jane Austen or Mr. Darcy.  I am not only a BiG Fan of the originals but of all the swell fan fiction as well.

So far I have -
Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
Darcy & Elizabeth by Linda Berdoll
Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll
I was Jane Austen's Best Friend by Cora Harrison
Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler
Darcy's Story by Janet Aylmer
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
Longbourn by Jo Baker

And just yesterday I found, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler at Goodwill.  It's the first book and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict is the sequel.

And several copies of Emma, Sense & Sensibility all by Ms. Jane Austen herself, including a volume of 4 of her stories.

I will read them all someday.

Over the kitchen sink is a very large window that lets in a lot of light.  I found these metallic paper star lanterns at Target this Christmas.  I was pretty surprised the copper colored one was so big!  At first I didn't like it and was going to take it down.  Life intervened and I never did get around to it and it kinda grew on me.  I swapped out the Fa La La banner for the XO XO & hearts, both from Target.

Doesn't it look grand?

I spend a lot of time at the sink washing dishes so I feel I must make it look as cute as possible.  It was a real challenge to photograph my window decorations with all the bright backlight streaming in all day long causing everything in the foreground to be in shadow in the photo.  Finally, I just gave up and decided to wait until dark and just use artificial light.  I wanted to capture how magical it looks with all the twinkling lights.
I Love the look so much I will be sad to take it down when I decorate for Easter.  But the days will be getting a little bit longer and that will have to be my consolation.

I've been dreaming of making a big collage with my collection of heart shaped candy boxes.  So this year, as I unpacked my Valentine treasures, I arranged them on the foyer rug.  I wasn't sure I had enough to look like anything interesting.  Some of them are vintage gifts given to me by my sweetheart, Mr. Wonderful.  Most of them are newer but I thought they were interesting and pretty, Some were purchased after the holiday on clearance, filled with tasty chocolates.  Next I think I'll do an arrangement that only has the Godiva hearts I've saved through the years.

Godiva makes exquisite chocolates that cost a fortune and taste like it.  They are my very favorite!  Here's a peek at this year's adorable collection.

Not only do the chocolates look spectacular, they taste amazing, rather fruity I think, richly decadent and to be savored.  And what is even better {to me!} is that the boxes are beautifully detailed and special.  I always save the box.  I'm a collector/hoarder like that.

Really, How Cute are these boxes?!!

What chocolate would you reach for first?

Cuz that sweet little Starfish is Mine!

~ Happy Valentine's Day!