Valentine's Day recap.

Happy Monday, Girls!

It's a holiday here in the US - do you have the day off?

I don't - I work in the media so we rarely close *frown face*

Anywho - I thought I'd share with you a few little bits from my Valentine's Day.
I'll start with the little gifts that I made for my husband and children. My husband and I are both working on losing weight right now (in 5 weeks, I'm down 34 and he's down 20 - holla!), so chocolates were out of the question this year. So I found this recipe for Chile-Honey Roasted Nuts and decided to make a batch for him.

These were surprisingly easy to make....and I don't cook. I don't do heat either, but I tasted a few and I thought I had a winner. First bite is crusty and sugary, and then wait for it, wait for it, wait for it - there's the heat. There was a recommendation to use raw sugar and kosher salt instead of regular sugar and regular salt and I took them up on both of those recommendations. My husband was so impressed that I made these; and he really liked them too!

Pricing for this gift was very inexpensive when bought from the bulk food bins at the grocer: $1.19 raw almonds, $1.23 raw cashews, .43 raw peanuts, .28 raw sugar, .02 cayenne pepper = $3.15; we had honey, and some left over kosher salt from Christmas.

In a cellophane bag....

....and all wrapped up.

For the kids, I made some Valentine "mom mix". Every time we have random things left over I dump them in to an old butter container and the kids have called it mom mix. Kix cereal, Goldfish crackers, chocolate chips, raisins, nut clusters - anything goes really. So for their Valentine gifts again I utilized the bulk food section at the grocery store and got 2 colors of Valentine Jelly Bellies, some of those pink & white frosted animal cookies, some yogurt raisins, and some yogurt pretzels in white and what little bit of the Valentine ones they had left. Cost me $6.13 - divide that by 2 and I spent $3.07 per kid; not too shabby.

Here's the mix in the clear cellophane bag.....



...and here they are all wrapped up for the kiddies.




Now that we have family here, I take every opportunity to entertain. So I decided to throw a little Valentine dinner party and had my mom, my aunt & uncle, and my cousin's kid over (he lives with my aunt & uncle - don't ask). And because we have a teeny tiny house, I have to do assigned seating putting the big (fat) people here, the kids there, and the less-fat people over there *giggles*

I made placecards for everyone using American Crafts' I Heart You patterned paper as my base. I wrapped a piece of lace trim around the top and then topped that with some cheap-o Valentine ribbon that I picked up on clearance at Michael's last year. And then I topped my ribbon treatment with an American Crafts Flair badge - love these little guys. I punched some hearts out of the same patterned paper, stitched on my red heart, printed names off in red from the computer, and finished off with some Hero Arts bling.

I baked some cupcakes and bought all sorts of fun stuff to decorate them with....

....but I am totally in love with these edible pearls and thinking next time I may go all Martha Stewart and just do pearls. They're so fancy!

I also got the kids involved in the party planning/decorating and picked up these cheap little wooden cutouts at Hobby Lobby for them to color. $1 each less 40% *wink* The first one is my daughter's - she's got love for buttons just like her mamma....

....my son colors like a boy.

Here's to a great start to your week!