Old Time Valentine’s Decorations for your Windows

Sometimes there is nothing more elegant in a window, whether historic or modern, than old time Valentine’s decorations. With using materials you have around the house, you can make Valentine’s decorations that give the look of old stained glass windows. For those that want an easier project, you can rely on the currently popular trend of vintage Valentine’s cards to create your window. Either way, everyone is sure to find something they like in one of these two projects. Stained Glass Heart Valentine’s Decorations What you will need:

• 12 x 16 inch sheet of wax paper
• Pencil sharpener
• Old crayons
• Kraft paper

What you do:

1. Take the wax paper and fold it in half along its length to make a crease, and then unfold.
2. Choose the color or colors you want in your heart and create wax-crayon shavings of those colors by sharpening the crayon in the pencil sharpener. Have the shavings fall evenly on to half of the wax paper.
3. Fold the clean half of the wax paper over the shavings and then on each of the three open edges create ½ inch fold to keep the shavings in.
4. Put the wax paper on a piece of kraft paper to protect the surface you are working on.
5. Put a piece a kraft paper over the wax paper to protect your iron.
6. Iron the paper lightly on medium heat. Left the top kraft paper and check on your project every 3 passes over the paper with the iron.
7. Once all the shavings have melted, stop ironing and let the project cool.
8. Cut out hearts in the wax paper of different sizes.
9. String each heart and hang them in your window at different levels as homemade stained glass hearts for the sun to shine through.

(From Martha Stewart Living, February 2000) Valentine’s Decorations from Vintage Cards The beauty of this project is that it is so easy that anyone can do it, and you still end up with a great Valentine’s decoration. What you will need:

• Vintage Valentine’s Day cards
• Red, white, or pink ribbon

This project can be done in two different ways. First, you can string the ribbon across your window and hang the cards on the ribbon by the fold as a simple Valentine’s garland. Or you can cut the ribbon at different lengths, attach one end inside the card, and the other end at the top of the window. There are a couple different ways you can attach the ribbon to the inside of the card. The easiest way is to staple it. If you would prefer not to see a staple in your project, you can also put glue on both sides of the ribbon and close the card on the ribbon so the glue affixes to both the ribbon and the card. With stinging up the cards individually and having them at different levels, it brings more attention to each individual card, and creates a larger Valentine’s decoration display in your window.