Valentine's Day Creativity

This month has been especially good for me because I have had the opportunity on three occasions now to be creative while celebrating Josh for the week of his birthday, supporting his interests by turning our apartment into A Steelers Nation worthy atmosphere and today creating a private dining experience to show my love for him. I Thank God for my husband daily and I love him so much. I also thank God for the passions he has given me. Two of which are crafts and creativity.  With Josh's busy schedule, it made sense to make dinner here at home, so why not have the ambiance of a special restaurant with a personal touch. Thanks hun for taking time from your studies to share a wonderful and cherished dinner with me:) Thanks also for the thoughtful journal you gave me so I don't have to use a plain ole school notebook. What a great prayer journal it will make!

This post shares one of our favorite recipes, easy valentine's decorations and a fun way to create ambient lighting.


CRANBERRY CHICKEN: (super easy crock pot recipe)
- Mix 1 can whole cranberry sauce, half of a regular sized French dressing bottle & 1 dry onion soup packet
- Pour over chicken breasts (4-6 pieces) in crock pot
- Cook on low for 6 hours and then serve over rice


EASY VALENTINE DECORATIONS:

Candy Votives -Chose candy you enjoy and fill glass containers with candy and a votive. Glass containers with only candy in them can be used as decoration as well not just for snacking:)

Hanging Heart Cones - Start with a square piece of and fold diagonally one way and then unfold and fold diagonally the other way.  Following the beginning directions for a Water Bomb (seen below) until you have formed the water bomb base.  Then kind of like cutting a snowflake cut the opened end corners off in the shape of two mounds like the top of a heart. Punch hole through the inner folds that touch each other. A cone shape should be created because of your fold lines. Add ribbon to hang and then fill with candy. (Caution: Add a little candy to each side switching back and forth or you may topple over. Same with removing candy, eat evening from both sides:)

Decorated Candles - Any touch of ribbon, stickers, paper can make a plain candle more festive. For this candle I just taped three pieces of ribbon around the candle and then added some sparkly heart foam stickers from the craft store. And I can take it all off to decorate for another holiday.

Water Bomb String Lights - I was inspired from another one of my favorite blogs for this lighting. One I wanted to have a special ambiance for our dinner (which I thought about trying on the back porch, but decided against since it's winter:) I also wanted to attempt to camouflage the hideous fan in our dining room. I'm not sure if that worked, but the ambiance was GREAT!

Josh and I folded enough water bombs for each bulb on the string. Follow the instructions for folding the Water Bomb below. Then I hung up the lights the way that I wanted them to hang and sway. Then I attached the water bombs just by covering each bulb. Some of the holes in the top of my water bomb were a tad big and would fall off the bulb. I just played around with the angle of the water bomb and how the bulb was hanging. We managed to make it through dinner with no falling bombs...haha.