Happy Valentine's Eve: Countdown to Kisses

I have a confession. It's an obvious one, but a confession none the less. I am a craftlifter. For those of you who are scrapbookers, you know that scraplifting is taking someone else's page layout and using it to design your own. Craftlifting is the same principle, but for other crafts. In my case, my well professed love of Pinterest is what allows me to craftlift.

It's well known that our family is full of Halloween fans. Because of that, we have plenty of Halloween decorations. However, we have very little in the way of decor for other holidays. Part of my mission this year is to make crafts that will allow us to celebrate holidays more equally all year long.

Today is one day before Valentine's Day. I was actually planning on having today's project featured on the blog about a week and a half ago, but paint and mod podge have been the bane of my existence with this particular craft. Better late than never, right?

I found this cute little "Countdown to Kisses" idea on Infarrantly Creative. The original plan called for inverted chocolate kisses inserted into holes that had been drilled in the board. The kisses get eaten one by one as the days grow closer to Valentine's Day.

I liked the cuteness of the board, but I'm not a fan of decor that requires resetting every year. I can move a peg, but I don't really feel like renumbering kisses each year. Yup...I'm that lazy. So I revamped the board to work with my particular style. The best thing about my revamp? I busted out some old equipment that hasn't seen much use lately.

I started with a 15 1/2" x 18" board that was a leftover shelf I purchased from ReStore for $1. I did have a small Pinterosity. The board was veneered on one side, but was otherwise MDF. I chose to use the MDF side for my facing. That led to a surface that is slightly textured. Not what I had planned. It looks fine otherwise, but it isn't as smooth as it could be. Oh well...an error I can live with.

I painted the board red with standard paint since I was out of spray paint. That worked fine, but did require a little more time. It took me four full coats of paint to get a good solid color. That was the beginning of those fun delays I was talking about. I figured two coats would be sufficient. Nope.

Once the paint was dry, I adhered the lettering. I used white vinyl and patterned paper that were cut out using my Pazzle (a machine similar to a Cricut or a Silhouette). The vinyl was self adhesive. The patterned paper I ran through my Xyron to make into stickers.

After adhering all of the wording, I needed to clear coat. Initially, I sprayed on a basic automotive clear coat. In fact, I put on three coats of the stuff. Meh. It just didn't give me the look I wanted. So I busted out the mod podge. Two thick coats of Mod Podge Gloss later, it had the sheen that I was looking for.

Now it was time for the numbering. When I started the project, I wasn't sure what I was going to do for numbers. I had considered using the vinyl and just plainly adhering the numbers to the board. I also thought about making a hook system using wooden discs to hang. But then I went to Archiver's liquidation sale. So sad...one of my favorite stores is closing. But...I lucked upon these cute little wooden numbers...for $3. Boom.

I glued the numbers on using Elmer's glue. Nothing like old reliable.

Lastly, I needed to fashion some way to mark the days. I had considered making everything into magnets, but I didn't have a magnetic cartridge like I thought I did. I did however have a laminating cartridge. I punched out a heart using my old Sizzix machine. It's nice to know that the older supplies I have still have a good amount of use left. I layered the heart with two additional pieces of paper to make it thicker and larger and then laminated it. I punched through the laminate with a simple circle hand punch and increased the size slightly to allow for the heart to fit over the wooden numbers. Now the heart can simply be moved from day to day as the month marches on.

The board can be mounted with photo hangers to allow it to be placed on the wall or it can be put on an easel for easy table display. I'm leaning toward the easel just to make it easier for Darian to move the heart.

All in all, not a difficult project...just a time consuming one. If it weren't for layers of goo and drying time, this could have been finished in one day. It's okay though, it was worth it. And now we have a decoration for Valentine's Day. One holiday down. Tada!