An easy jewelry craft for the kids.

My girls like to stack these and wear several at once.

For this project you will need: needle nose pliers, colorful rubber bands (I bought mine at Office Depot for a few dollars a bag. Make sure your rubber bands fit loosely on the wrist – mine measured 3-inches when loose), jump rings (available in the jewelry supply section of craft stores, I used .24" gold), and small beads. Make sure the hole in your bead is large enough to fit onto your jump ring.

Using the needle nose pliers, open the jump ring by pulling the ends sideways. Slip bead onto ring, slip ring onto rubber band and close jump ring by pulling the ends back together. This is the best way to open and close a jump ring – if you pull it apart directly, you will distort the shape of the ring.

I slipped on a few jump rings without beads too.

The Vintage Bazaar – check it out.

Tin foil is shaped into a heart, wrapped in yarn and given a tattered message of love.

Grab a sheet of aluminum foil and shape into a heart; the bigger the sheet, the bigger the heart.

Using a glue gun, tack down the end of a piece of yarn and start wrapping to cover the entire heart. I used dabs of glue here and there to help secure the yarn.

Secure the end of the yarn with glue.

Embroider your message onto a piece of fabric, cut it out and pull the threads to fray the edges. If embroidery isn't your thing you could always stamp out your message with rubber stamps or write it on paper.

Attach embroidered message to yarn heart with a hot glue gun.

Convo balls are decorative balls that carry a flirty message. You can place these in a bowl or on a tray to create an interesting display for Valentine's Day. Our 5-year-old neighbor and friend, Alice, suggests chucking them at someone you love.

Why Not?

For this you will need: old tennis balls, fabric ripped into 1-inch wide strips, embroidery floss, needle and hot glue gun. You could use styrofoam balls if you like – I just wanted to recycle some dead tennis balls.

Snip with scissors and rip fabric into 1-inch wide strips. Using embroidery floss and needle, stitch out your message using a back stitch.

It will take a few strips to cover your ball. Start with blank fabric first – add on your embroidered strip last. Use a glue gun to tack down the beginning and end of each strip; wrap tightly.

I call this an "around the house project"; there's no need to run to the store, you can make it with things you have around the house.

With a little bit of love, a plain box is looking pretty good for Valentine's Day.

This is a box they will want to keep.

For this project you will need: A plain box, embroidery thread, a pencil and a needle. You can reuse a box you have or check the wrapping paper section of craft stores for blank boxes.

Using a pencil, lightly draw a heart onto the top of the box. Using your needle, punch holes all along your pencil line. In order to create a continuous line with your stitches you will need to make two holes close together and space those double holes about 1/4 of an inch apart from each other.

Erase pencil line and stitch in design using a straight stitch.

When you get to the end, knot your thread to secure your design.

Using alphabet rubber stamps, stamp out a message inside of your heart.

To cover up the back of my stitches, I lined the inside of the lid with origami paper.

I love to add simple, natural details to our home. This easy decorative necklace made from dried rose petals adds an interesting look to our entryway.

For this you will need: at least a half a dozen dried roses, a sewing needle and thread. I find the best way to dry roses is to just leave them standing in water and let them dry out. I have had the best luck retaining the color this way.

It will take about 2 – 2.5 weeks to get them to the perfect state of dryness.

Gently remove each petal.

Thread your needle and string on dried petals.

I used a red embroidery floss.

It took me about 15 minutes to make a set of 6 monogrammed cloth napkin rings with my PSA stamper.

The ink adheres to fabric really well.

Cut out fabric into 7" x 3" strips.

Stamp monogram onto center of strip.

I chose a traditional font with a decorative ring.

Fold fabric in half with stamped image on the inside and stitch closed. Turn ring inside out.

I'm really happy with my self-inker and peel & stick stamps from PSA Essentials.

A recent family photo is clipped onto a bundle of books.

To make this I tore off the covers of 6 paperback books and bundled them together with twine.

Using miniature clothespins (picked up for a few dollars a bag at craft stores) I attached my photo to the twine.

Just something different.